THE UNITED STATES

AND THE ORIGINS OF THE

COLD WAR, 1941-1947

Columbia Studies in Contemporary American History Series

W illiam E. L e u c h te n b u r g a n d A la n B r in k le y , g e n e r a l e d ito r s
Columbia Studies in Contemporary American History Series
William E. Leuchtenberg and Alan Brinkley, General Editors
Lawrence S. Wittner, Rebels A g ain st W a r: The Am erican Peace
Movement, 1 9 4 1 —1 9 6 0 1969
Davis R. B. Ross, Preparing fo r Ulysses: P olitics a n d Veterans D u rin g
W o rld W a r ll 1969
John Lewis Gaddis, The U n ited States a n d the O rigins o f
the C o ld W ar, 1 9 4 1 - 1 9 4 7 1972; rev. ed. 2000
George C. Herring, Jr., A id to R ussia, 1 9 4 1 —1 9 4 6 : Strategy, D iplom acy, the
Origins o f the C o ld W a r 1973
Alonzo L. Hamby, Beyond the N ew D ea l: H arry S. Trum an a n d Am erican
Liberalism 1973
Richard M. Fried, M en A g a in st M cC arth y 1976
Steven F. Lawson, B lack B allots: V oting R ights in
the South, 1 9 4 4 - 1 9 6 9 1976
Girl M. Brauer, John F. Kennedy a n d the Second Reconstruction 1977
Maeva Marcus, Trum an a n d the Steel Seizure Case: The L im its o f
P residential Power 1977
Morton Sosna, In Search o f the Silen t South: Southern L tberals a n d the
Race Issue 1977
Robert M. Collins, The Business Response to Keynes,
1 9 2 9 -1 9 6 4 1981
Robert M. Hathaway, Ambiguous Partnership: B rita in a n d Am erica,
1 9 4 4 -1 9 4 7 1981
Leonard Dinnerstein, Am erica a n d the Survivors o f
the Holocaust 1982
Lawrence S. Wittner, Am erican Intervention in Greece, 1 9 4 3 —1 9 4 9 1982
Nancy Bernkopf Tucker, P atterns tn the D u st: Cbtnese-Am ertcan R elations
a n d the Recognition Controversy, 1 9 4 9 —1 9 5 0 1983
Catherine A. Barnes. Journey from J im Crow: The Desegregation o f
Southern T ra n sit 1983
Steven F. Lawson, In P ursuit o f Power: Southern B lacks a n d E lectoral
P olitics, 1 9 6 5 - 1 9 8 2 1985
David R. Colburn, R a cia l Change a n d Com m unity C rists: S t. Augustine,
F lorida, 1 8 7 7 - 1 9 8 0 1985
Henry William Brands, C o ld W arriors: Eisenhower's Generation a n d the
M akin g o f Am erican Foreign P olicy' 1988
Marc S. Gallicchio, The C old W a r Begins tn A sia : Am erican E ast A sian
Poltcy a n d the F a ll o f the Japanese Empire 1988
Melanie Billings-Yun, Dectston A g ain st W ar: Eisenhower a n d
D ien Bien P hu 1988
Walter L. Hixson, George F. Kennan: C o ld W a r Iconoclast 1989
Robert D. Schulzinger, H enry Kissinger: D octor o f D iplom acy 1989
Henry William Brands, The Specter o f N eutralism : The U n ited States a n d
the Emergence o f the T h ird W orld, 1 9 4 7 —1 9 6 0 1989
Mitchell K. Hall, Because o f T heir F aith : C A L C A V a n d Religious Opposition to
the Vietnam W a r 1990
David L. Anderson, T rapped B y Success: The Eisenhower A dm in istration a n d
Vietnam , 1 9 5 3 -1 9 6 1 1991
Steven M. Gillon, The Democrats* D ilem m a: W a lter F. M ondale
a n d the L tberal Legacy 1992
Wyatt C. Wells, Economist in an U ncertain W orld: A rth u r F. B u m s a n d
the Federal Reserve, 1 9 7 0 —1 9 7 8 1994
Stuart Svonkin,y««f A g ain st Prejudice: Am erican Jew s a n d the F igh t
fo r C iv il Liberties 1997
Doug Rossinow, The P olitics o f A u thenticity: Ltberaltsm , C h ristia n ity,
a n d the N ew L eft in Am erica 1998
 The United States
and the Origins of the

COLD WAR
194M 947
John Laois Gaddis

COLUMBIA U N IV E R SIT Y PRESS

N E W YORK
 Columbia University Press
Publishers Since 1893
New York Chichester, West Sussex
Copyright © 1972, 2000 Columbia University Press
All rights reserved
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Gaddis, John Lewis.
The United States and the origins of the Cold War, 1941—1947 / John Lewis Gaddis.
p. cm. — (Contemporary American history series)
Originally published: © 1972. W ith new introd.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-231-12239-X (paper)
1. Cold War. 2. United States—Foreign relations— 1945—1953. 3. United States—
Foreign relations— 1933—1945. 4. United States—Foreign relations— Soviet
Union. 5. Soviet Union—Foreign relations— United States. I. Title. II. Series.
E744 .G25 2000
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Casebound editions of Columbia University Press books are printed on

permanent and durable acid-free paper.
Printed in the United States of America

p 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
FOR BARBARA
 Preface to the New Edition ix
Preface xiii
Abbreviations Used in the Footnotes xv
1. The Past as Prologue: The American Vision of the Postwar World 1
2. The Soviet Union and World Revolution: The American View,
1941-1944 32
3. Cooperating for Victory: Defeating Germany and Japan 63
4. Repression versus Rehabilitation: The Problem of Germany 95
5. Security versus Self-Determination: The Problem of Eastern Europe 133
6. Economic Relations: Lend-Lease and the Russian Loan 174
7. Victory and Transition: Harry S. Truman and the Russians 198
8. The Impotence of Omnipotence: American Diplomacy, the Atomic
Bomb, and the Postwar World 244
9. Getting Tough with Russia: The Reorientation of American Policy,
1946 282
10. To the Truman Doctrine: Implementing the New Policy 316
11. Conclusion: The United States and the Origins of the Cold War 353
Bibliography 363
Index 383
 PREFACE TO THE
NEW EDITION

Asking an author to assess his own work is a risky thing to do. Self-
congratulation is a slippery slope, and it’s all too easy to wind up
sprawled awkwardly at the bottom of it. Self-flagellation is also a dan­
ger, especially when the work in question is a revised doctoral disser­
tation completed almost three decades ago by an inexperienced young
scholar in what was then a very different world. Rereading The United
States and the Origins of the Cold War is, for me, rather like revisiting
the sites of lost youth. Some things seem familiar and others strange;
some evoke nostalgia and others embarrassment; there is a sense of
having done then what I could not or would not or should not do now.
One thing, though, is clear: it never occurred to me when I was writing
this book that it would still be in print three decades later, or that a
generation of students not yet born would now be reading it, citing it,
and even at times finding it useful.
Why this has happened. I’m not quite sure. It cannot be the sources,
for they’ve been superseded by new materials, especially those from the
“other side“ in the early Cold War. It can hardly be the theory, for
there is none here worth mentioning. It may have had something to
do with the timing, for the book was one of the first substantial (if
mild) critiques of “New Left“ revisionism, and this fact gained it a
sufficiently prominent historiographical niche that graduate students
at least are expected to know what it says. I like to think that the
writing has kept the book readable. For this I owe much to mentors
x Preface to the New Edition

(their names appear in the original preface) who had not the slightest
patience with slack or soggy prose.
There is one other way in which I think I was fortunate. I was in
graduate school during the tumultuous 1960s, but I did not emerge
from that experience with the same sense of obligation that so many of
my contemporaries felt to condemn the American Establishment and
all its works. Perhaps geography had something to do with this: politics
weren't as polarized in ^Austin, Texas, as they were on the East and
W est coasts, and in retrospect this was probably good for me. I managed
somehow to avoid letting my own outrage over the Vietnam War—
which was certainly there as early as 1965— from becoming a lens
through which I viewed the early Cold War. One never totally escapes
the present in writing about the past, but I'm glad that that particular
present did not become, as it did for so many, my point of departure.
I've noticed one other thing in returning to this book for the first
time in many years. It focuses, more than I'd remembered, on the re­
lationship of domestic politics to foreign policy, and in this sense it's
still unusual. My Yale colleague H. Bradford Westefield had, of course,
published his classic Foreign Policy and Domestic Politics: From Pearl
Harbor to Korea in 1955, and I modeled my dissertation on it. The
original title was to have been “Domestic Influences on United States
Policy Toward the Soviet Union, 1943—1946.*' But surprisingly few
scholars since have looked at the role party and Congressional politics
played in shaping foreign policy during World W ar II and the early
Cold War.
Somehow, in our preoccupation with archives, theory, quantification,
methodology, and historiography, we've lost sight of something Pres­
idents Roosevelt and Truman and their subordinates never for a mo­
ment forgot: that they operated within a highly contentious domestic
political environment from which they could only rarely insulate the
conduct of foreign policy. It seems worth it now to have taken the time,
in writing the dissertation, to plough doggedly through all of the issues
of the New York Times, Time, Newsweek, and the Congressional Record for
the years in question, even though I never used most of the notes I took
from these sources. They did, I think, give me a better sense of how
American leaders saw things at the time than most of our current mod-
Preface to the N ew Edition xi

els of bureaucratic and organizational politics or of “rational choice“

decision making would have done.
W hat's missing from this book? Quite a lot, I can now see. There
was speculation, but only that, about the actions of the Soviet Union:
we now have much more confirming evidence. There's almost nothing
about the role of the Europeans in the coming of the Cold War, some­
thing I now regard as of major importance. There's little, even within
the context of United States policy, about political economy, war plan­
ning, the military-industrial complex, covert operations, or the extent
to which the American view of the outside world was a socially con­
structed reality. No one should attem pt to understand the role of the
United States in the early Cold War without consulting the works of
historians who have dealt carefully with these issues: I mean particularly
Melvyn P. Leffler, Michael Hogan, Frank Costigliola, Elaine Tyler May,
Marc Trachtenberg, Aaron Friedberg, Anders Stephanson, and Carolyn
Eisenberg, among many others.
And what have I learned from rereading this book? W ell, that I
wrote in shorter sentences then. That I certainly had more stamina for
slogging through sources than I do now. That I resisted, as I hope I
still do, seeing history in terms of dogmas, whether of the right or the
left. But, most of all, that I was extraordinarily lucky: that the book
came out at just the right time, that it did as well as it did, and that
there are people around now— wonder of wonders— who still want to
read it.

J o h n L e w is G a d d is
New Haven, Connecticut
April 2000
 PREFACE

Historians of the Cold War face a peculiar problem: an overwhelming,

though still not complete, body of documents on United States foreign
policy during and after World War II is now open for research, yet we
have little reliable information about what went on inside the Kremlin
during the same period. This disparity of sources makes it impractical, at
present, to attempt a definitive study of the origins of the Cold War.
Nor is it now feasible to make final judgments about responsibility for
that conflict, although I do venture a few highly tentative suggestions in
the conclusion.
My goal has been more modest. I have sought to analyze the evolu­
tion of United States policy toward the Soviet Union from the formation
of the Grand Alliance in 1941 to the proclamation of the Truman Doc­
trine in 1947.1 have proceeded on the assumption that foreign policy is
the product of external and internal influences, as perceived by officials
responsible for its formulation. In seeking to understand their behavior, I
have tried to view problems of the time as these men saw them, not
solely as they appear in retrospect. I have not hesitated to express judg­
ments critical of American policy-makers, but in doing so have tried to
keep in mind the constraints, both external and internal, which limited
their options. If there is a single theme which runs through this book, it
is the narrow range of alternatives open to American leaders during this
period as they sought to deal with problems of war and peace.
In contrast to much recent work on the subject, this book will not
XIV Preface

treat the “Open Door“ as the basis of United States foreign policy. Revi­
sionist historians have performed a needed service by stressing the influ­
ence of economic considerations on American diplomacy, but their focus
has been too narrow: many other forces— domestic politics, bureau­
cratic inertia, quirks of personality, perceptions, accurate or inaccurate, of
Soviet intentions— also affected the actions of Washington officials. I
have tried to convey the full diversity and relative significance of these
determinants of policy.

Far too many people have helped in the writing of this book for me to
thank them all individually, but the contributions of several deserve special
mention. Robert A. Divine supervised the manuscript in its original
form as a dissertation at the University of Texas, and has offered wise
counsel on subsequent drafts. H. Wayne Morgan taught me most of
what I know about writing style. Oliver H. Radkey first stimulated my
interest in Soviet-American relations through his courses in Russian his­
tory. Robert H. Ferrell, Gaddis Smith, George C. Herring, Jr., Thomas
R. Maddux, and Alfred E. Eckes, Jr., have all read the manuscript at
various stages and have offered valuable suggestions. My colleague and
office-mate, Lon Hamby, has generously taken time from his own book,
soon to appear in this series, to wade through at least three separate
drafts and to offer unfailingly helpful advice on each. I owe an especially
large debt of gratitude to my editor, William E. Leuchtenburg, who,
with an exemplary combination of firmness and tact, persuaded me to
reconsider, reorganize, and rewrite large portions of this book. The re­
sults of his patient and constructive guidance are evident on every page.
Needless to say, final responsibility for the contents remains my own.
Historians could not function without archivists and librarians. I wish
to express my appreciation to the staffs of the National Archives, the Li­
brary of Congress, the Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman, and
Dwight D. Eisenhower Libraries, and the manuscript collections at
Princeton, Yale, Harvard, Rice, and the Universities of Michigan, Okla­
homa, and Virginia. I owe special thanks to the long-suffering librarians
at the University of Texas, Indiana University Southeast, and Ohio Uni­
versity, all of whom cheerfully put up with incessant requests for books,
interlibrary loans, microfilm, and Xerox copies while I was writing this
book. Every historian of recent United States foreign policy is indebted
Preface xv

to the Historical Office of the Department of State, which, despite years

of understaffing, has nonetheless managed to make the record of this
country’s diplomacy available to scholars with a degree of speed and ac­
curacy unmatched by any other nation.
My wife, Barbara, has contributed to this project in so many ways
that my gratitude to her can only be expressed on the dedication page.
My son, John Michael, offered encouraging gurgles from his crib.
J o h n L e w is G a d d is

Athens, Ohio
May 1971
 ABBREVIATIONS-trSHfi IN THE FOOTNOTES

DAFR Documents on American Foreign Relations.Vols. II—

IX (1939—47). Boston and Princeton, 1940—49.
Eisenhower Papers A lbert D. Chandler et al,, eds. The Papers o f
D wight David Eisenhower: The War Years. 5
vols. Baltim ore, 1970.
FDR: Personal Letters E lliott Roosevelt, ed. F.D.R., His Personal Let­
ters: 1928—1945. 2 vols. New York, 1930.
FDR: Public Papers Samuel I. Rosenman, ed. The Public Papers and
Addresses o f Franklin D. Roosevelt. 13 vols. New
York, 1938-30.
FR U.S. D epartm ent o f State. Foreign Relations o f
the United States. A nnual volumes, 1941—46.
W ashington, D.C., 1938—70.
FR: Casablanca U.S. D epartm ent of State. Foreign Relations o f
the United States: The Conferences at Washing­
ton, 1941—1942, and Casablanca, 1943.
W ashington, D.C., 1968.
FR: Potsdam U.S. D epartm ent of State. Foreign Relations o f
the United States: The Conference o f Berlin ( The
Potsdam Conference), 1945. 2 vols. W ashington,
D.C., 1960.
FR: Tehran U.S. D epartm ent of State. Foreign Relations o f
the United States: The Conferences at Cairo and
Tehran, 1943. W ashington, D.C., 1961.
FR: Washington and Quebec U.S. D epartm ent of State. Foreign Relations o f
the United States: The Conferences at Washing-
ton and Quebec, 1943. W ashington, D.C., 1970.
FR: Yalta U.S. D epartm ent of State. Foreign Relations o f
the United States: The Conferences at Malta and
Yalta, 1945. W ashington, D.C., 1933.
Truman Public Papers Public Papers o f the Presidents: Harry S. Tru­
man, 1945-1947. W ashington, D.C., 1 9 6 1 -
63.
 THE UNITED STATES
AND THE ORIGINS OF THE
COLD WAR, 1 9 4 1 -1 9 4 7
 The Past as Prologue:
The American Vision of the
Postwar World

“In these past few years— and, most violently, in the past three days
— we have learned a terrible lesson.” Thus did Franklin D. Roosevelt
assess the significance of Pearl Harbor in a fireside chat to the American
people on December 9, 1941. Isolationism, the President asserted, had
been a mistake: there could be no security from attack in a world ruled
by gangsters. “We don’t like it— we didn’t want to get in it— but
we are in it and we’re going to fight it with everything we’ve got.” The
horrors of war would also bring opportunities, however. Americans
would fight, Roosevelt proclaimed, not just for victory, but to prevent
wars from breaking out in the future. “The sources of international bru­
tality, wherever they exist, must be absolutely and finally broken down.”
F.D.R. concluded forcefully: “We are going to win the war, and we are
going to win the peace that follows.” 1
Nothing shaped American plans to prevent future wars more than a
determination to avoid mistakes of the past. Washington officials
brooded deeply over the lessons of recent history. All had witnessed, and
most had participated in, the events of World War I and the interwar
1 FDR; Public Papers, X, 528-30.
2 The Past as Prologue

period. Errors of thosé years, they felt, had led directly to the present
struggle. Vice-President Henry A. Wallace put it well: “We failed in
our job after World W ar I. . . . But by our very errors we learned much,
and after this war we shall be in position to utilize our knowledge in
building a world which is economically, politically, and, I hope, spirit­
ually sound.” Roosevelt himself promised: “We have profited by our
past mistakes. This time we shall know how to make full use of
victory.” 2
Lessons of the past significantly conditioned Washington's plans for
peace. The first essential would be to defeat completely, disarm, and oc­
cupy those nations which had started the war. Lenient treatment of Ger­
many after World W ar I had only encouraged further aggression;
harsher methods would be necessary after this war. But victory would
mean little if political and economic conditions which had spawned the
totalitarians of the 1930s remained in existence. Hence, a second re­
quirement for peace would be to promote self-determination and to pre­
vent future depressions. American failure to join the League of Nations
had also contributed to the collapse of international order; therefore, a
third prerequisite for peace would be membership in a new collective se­
curity organization. Finally, Roosevelt and his advisers clearly realized
that their vision of the future would never materialize unless the mem­
bers of the Grand Alliance, united now only by their common enemies,
built friendly relationships which would survive victory.
Which öf America's allies would more strongly resist Washington's
plans for peace was not completely clear. Both Great Britain and the
Soviet Union agreed on the desirability of defeating their enemies.
Both accepted, though with varying degrees of commitment, the con­
cept of international organization. Neither, however, fully supported
2 Wallace speech to the Free W orld Association, May 8, 1942, DAFR, IV
(1941—42), 66; Roosevelt speech to the International Student Assembly, September 3,
1942, FDR: Public Papers, X I, 353. See also Sumner Welles’s speech to the New
York Herald Tribune forum, November 17, 1942, DAFR, V (1942—43), 31—32; and
Cordell Hull, Memoirs, II, 1637. For the importance of the W orld W ar I experience
in shaping the policies of Roosevelt and his advisers, see Frank Freidel, Roosevelt:
The Apprenticeship, p. 301; Robert E. Sherwood, Roosevelt and Hopkins, p. 227;
Richard N. Gardner, Sterling-Dollar Diplomacy, pp. 4—5; Eric F. Goldman, Rendez­
vous with Destiny, pp. 308—9; W illiam L. Neumann, After Victory, pp. 32—33; and
William E. Leuchtenburg, "The New Deal and the Analogue of W ar," in John Brae-
man, Robert H. Bremner, and Everett Walters, eds.. Change and Continuity in Twen­
tieth Century America, pp. 82—143.
The Past as Prologue 3

self-determination or the multilateral trading policies which Washington

felt would be necessary to improve world economic conditions. Although
London and Moscow approved the Atlantic Charter, which incorporated
these objectives, they did so conditionally. Winston Churchill carefully
exempted the entire British Empire from the document’s provisions. The
Russians expressed an even more sweeping reservation: “practical appli­
cation of these principles will necessarily adapt itself to the circum­
stances, needs, and historic peculiarities of particular countries.” 3
Great Britain, however, did not have the power to insist on its postwar
plans. The Soviet Union did. Like Americans, Russians could not forget
the past in preparing for the future. Three devastating invasions in one
hundred and thirty years had convinced Moscow of the need to seek se­
curity through territorial acquisitions and spheres of influence. Tradi­
tional Russian xenophobia, compounded by communist ideology, caused
Kremlin officials to suspect Western motives and led them toward uni­
lateral solutions of their diplomatic problems.4 Both Washington and
Moscow wanted peace, but strong internal influences caused each to con­
ceive of it in contradictory ways. These clashing perceptions of a com­
mon goal wrecked the Grand Alliance at the moment of victory, creat­
ing an ironic situation in which simultaneous searches for peace led to
the Cold War.

I
Hitler’s attack on Russia in June, 1941, came at a low point in that
country’s relations with the United States. Recognition of the Soviet
3 For the Atlantic Charter and British and Russian reservations regarding it, see
DAFR, IV (1941-42), 209-10, 214, 216; and Theodore A. Wilson, The First Sum-
mit, pp. 261—62. Gaddis Smith, American Diplomacy During the Second World War,
and Gabriel Kolko, The Politics o f War, both stress the fact, often lost sight of in the
aftermath of the Cold W ar, that American officials expected almost as much resistance
to their postwar program from Great Britain as from the Soviet Union. A contempo­
rary, if overdrawn, account making the same point is Elliott Roosevelt, As He Saw It.
4 The definitive treatment of the motivation behind Soviet policy, in so far as this is
possible given the limited sources available, is Adam B. Ulam, Expansion and Coexist-
ence. Other useful interpretations include Isaac Deutscher, Ironies o f History, pp.
147—66; Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., “Origins of the Cold W ar/' Foreign Affairs,
XLVI (October, 1967), 22—52; and Joseph R. Starobin, “Origins of the Cold War:
The Communist Dimension/’ ibid., XLVII (July, 1969), 681-96.
4 The Past as Prologue

Union in 1933 had not dispelled the legacy of suspicion which had poi­
soned Russian-American relations since the Bolshevik Revolution. The
purges of the late 1930s dissipated most of the respect which the Soviet
Union had won through its economic achievements, its support of collec­
tive security, and its new “democratic” constitution of 1936. Moscow's
role in the shattering events surrounding the outbreak of World War
II— the cynical Nazi-Soviet Pact, the partition of Poland, the bungled
invasion of Finland, which made Stalin look both brutal and ridiculous
—greatly intensified American hostility. Stalin’s decision to sign a non­
aggression pact with Japan in April, 1941, simply confirmed the prevail­
ing view: that the Soviet Union was a cruel and rapacious dictatorship,
only slightly less repulsive than Nazi Germany.5
Despite all this, American officials quickly saw opportunity in the
Russo-German conflict. Since 1940, the Roosevelt Administration had
committed itself to aiding Great Britain against Germany by ail means
short of war. If Russia could tie down Hitler’s armies for any length of
time, Britain might be spared. The State Department’s first official state­
ment on the German invasion hinted cautiously at this: “In the opinion
of this Government,. . . any defense against Hitlerism, any rallying of
the forces opposing Hitlerism, from whatever source these forces may
spring, will hasten the eventual downfall of the present German leaders,
and will therefore redound to the benefit of our own defense and secu­
rity.” Privately Administration leaders spoke more frankly. One of them
wrote on the day after the German attack: “So long as Russia is preoc­
cupying Hitler . . . we should and will do everything in our power to
aid Britain. . . . Between them Britain and Russia may frustrate Hitler’s
aims to rule the world.” President Roosevèlt observed late in June that if
Hitler’s invasion proved to be more than simply a diversion, “it will
mean the liberation of Europe from Nazi domination.” 6
■

5 The most perceptive examination of Soviet-American relations during the period

from recognition to the German invasion is Thomas R. Maddux, “American Relations
with the Soviet Union, 1933—1941*' (Ph.D. dissertation. University of Michigan,
1969). W illiam L. Langer and S. Everett Gleason, The Challenge to Isolation and The
Undeclared War, contain a detailed discussion of Russian-American relations during
the 1939—41 period. Other useful accounts include Foster Rhea Dulles, The Road to
Teheran; Robert P. Browder, Origins o f Soviet-American Diplomacy; Donald G.
Bishop, The Roosevelt-Litvinov Agreements; and Edward M. Bennett, Recognition o f
Russia.
6 Statement by Undersecretary of State Sumner Welles, June 23, 1941, DAFR, III
(1940—41), 365; Oscar Cox to Harry Hopkins, June 23, 1941, copy in Cox Diary,
The Past as Prologue 5

If Russian resistance to Hitler could help Britain, it followed logically

that the United States should do what it could to keep the Red Army
fighting. Diplomatic and military advisers gave the Russians little
chance to withstand the German onslaught, but Roosevelt, impressed by
Harry Hopkins' optimistic reports of his talks with Stalin late in July,
chose to disregard these warnings. On August 2, while Hopkins was still
in Moscow, the President admonished his special assistant for defense
matters to speed up aid to Russia: “Please, with my full authority, use a
heavy hand— act as a burr under the saddle and get things moving!"
Three months later Roosevelt proclaimed the survival of the Soviet
Union vital to the defense of the United States, and ordered that lend-
lease aid be made immediately available to the Russians.*7
Hitler's declaration of war four days after Pearl Harbor made the
United States and the Soviet Union formal allies. From now on victory
over Germany would depend upon cooperation with Russia, whatever
past differences had been. Roosevelt appraised the value of this coalition
realistically: “Put it in terms of dead Germans and smashed tanks,” he
told a press conference early in 1942. To General Douglas MacArthur
he wrote in May that “the Russian armies are killing more Axis person­
nel and destroying more Axis material than all other twenty-five United
Nations put together." Even after the collapse of Mussolini in July,
1943, the President could still tell the American people that “the heavi­
est and most decisive fighting today is going on in Russia,” and that
Britain and the United States had been fortunate to have been able to
contribute “somewhat" to the Russian war effort.8
Cox MSS; Roosevelt to W illiam D. Leahy, June 26, 1941, FDR: Personal Letters, II,
1177.
7 Roosevelt to Wayne Coy, August 2, 1941, FDR: Personal Letters, II, 383; Roose­
velt to Edward R. Stetdnius, Jr., November 7, 1941, FR: 1941, I, 857. Examples of
the pessimistic appraisals of Russian fighting ability current in the summer of 1941
can be found in Sherwood, Roosevelt and Hopkins, pp. 303—4; Anthony Eden, The
Reckoning, p. 312; and Fred L. Israel, ed.. The War Diary o f Breckinridge Long, p.
207. Raymond H. Dawson, The Decision to Aid Russia, is the definitive treatment of
the subject, but see also Robert A. Divine, Roosevelt and World War II, pp. 80—81;
and James MacGregor Burns, Roosevelt: The Soldier o f Freedom, pp. 110—15.
8 Press conference, February 17, 1942, FDR: Public Papers, XI, 103; Roosevelt to
MacArthur, May 6, 1942, quoted in Herbert Feis, Churchill, Roosevelt, Stalin, p. 42;
fireside chat, July 28, 1943, FDR: Public Papers, X II, 331. See also Roosevelt to
Churchill, April 3, 1942, quoted in W inston S. Churchill, The Hinge o f Fate, p. 274;
and Roosevelt to Queen W ilhelmina, April 6, 1942, FDR: Personal Letters, II,
1304-5.
6 The Past as Prologue

But Roosevelt's “grand design" encompassed far more than simple

military collaboration with the Soviet Union to defeat Germany—
cooperation with Russia would also be vital to ensure postwar peace.
Keenly aware of the realities of power, Roosevelt knew that the United
States and the Soviet Union would emerge from the war as the world's
two strongest nations. If they could stay together, no third power could
prevail against them. If they could not, the world would be divided into
two armed camps, a prospect too horrible to contemplate. “We either
work with the other great Nations," F.D.R. told the Foreign Policy As­
sociation in 1944, “or we might some day have to fight them. And I am
against that.” 9
The President knew that vast differences in culture, language, and
ideology separated the Soviet Union from the United States. He had no
illusions about the nature of Stalin's regime, which he regarded as no
less rigid a dictatorship than Hitler’s. But he believed the Russian form
of totalitarianism to be less dangerous than that of Germany because the
Kremlin had not sought world conquest through military aggression.
Moscow had tried to use the Comintern to overthrow foreign govern­
ments, Roosevelt admitted, but these sporadic efforts seemed far less of a
threat than Hitler's more direct methods. Much of Russia's hostility to­
ward the West, he believed, stemmed simply from lack of knowledge: “I
think the Russians are perfectly friendly; they aren't trying to gobble up
all the rest of Europe or the world. They didn't know us, that's the really
fundamental difference. . . . They haven't got any crazy ideas of con­
quest . . . , and now that they have got to know us, they are much more
9 Speech of October 21, 1944, FDR: Public Papers, X III, 352. Roosevelt clearly
outlined his “grand design“ in two interviews with Forrest Davis, one in December,
1942, the other in March, 1944. (See Robert A. Divine, Second Chance, pp. 114—15,
199.) Davis published the substance of these, without quoting the President directly,
as “Roosevelt’s W orld Blueprint,’’ Saturday Evening Post, CCXV (April 10, 1943),
20 ff., and “W hat Really Happened at Teheran,’’ ibid., CCXVI (May 13 and 20,
1944), 12 ff., 22 ff. Other helpful summaries of Roosevelt’s views on Russia indude a
memorandum by Archbishop Francis Spellman of a conversation with Roosevelt on
September 3, 1943, published in Robert I. Gannon, The Cardinal Spellman Story, pp.
222—24; Edgar Snow, “Fragments from F.D.R.,’’ Monthly Review, VIII (March,
1957), 399—404; W . Averell Harriman, “Our W artime Relations with the Soviet
Union,*’ Department o f State Bulletin, XXV (September 3, 1951), 378; Sumner
Welles, Where Are We Heading? pp. 27-28, 36-37; W illiam H. McNeill, America,
Britain, and Russia, pp. 326—27, 366—67; and Burns, Roosevelt: The Soldier of Free­
dom, pp. 102—3.
The Past as Prologue 7

willing to accept us.” Proud of his decision to recognize the USSR in

1933, Roosevelt sought to bring Russia into the postwar community of
peace-loving states. The post-World W ar I policy of treating the Soviet
Union as an international pariah had been silly— after World W ar II
it would be suicidal.10
The President believed that he could obtain Stalin’s postwar coopera­
tion by meeting legitimate Russian security needs, provided the Soviet
Union had given up its attempts to force communism on the rest of the
world. Convinced that World W ar I diplomats had erred in not agree­
ing on war aims before the fighting had stopped, Roosevelt attached
great importance to reaching an early settlement with Stalin. Personal
diplomacy, he felt, would demonstrate America’s good intentions,
thereby creating the basis for peaceful coexistence after the war. "I ‘got
along fine* with Marshal Stalin,” F.D.R. told a nationwide radio audi­
ence after the Teheran Conference; “I believe that we are going to get
along very well with him and the Russian people— very well
indeed.” 11
But the President’s “grand design” for cooperation with Russia was
only part of a larger American scheme for preventing future wars. This
vision of the future, based primarily upon the lessons of the past and
shared, to a remarkable extent, by most Washington officials and by a
large portion of the informed public, imposed limits on how far Roose­
velt could go in accepting Stalin’s postwar objectives. The President
could never move too far from the American peace program without
calling into question the reasons for fighting the war. The extent to
which Russian postwar aims conflicted with those of the United States
would thus determine, in large measure, the possibilities for keeping the
alliance intact after victory.
10 Speech to the American Youth Congress, February 10, 1940, FDR: Public Pa­
pers, IX, 93; Roosevelt to Myron C. Taylor, September 1, 1941, Roosevelt MSS, PSF:
“Italy"; Roosevelt to Pope Pius X II, September 3, 1941, FDR: Personal Letters, II,
1204—5; remarks to the Advertising W ar Council Conference, March 8, 1944, FDR:
Public Papers, X III, 99; speech to the Foreign Policy Association, October 21, 1944,
ibid., p. 344.
11 State of the Union address, January 11, 1944, FDR: Public Papers, X III, 32;
press conference, May 26, 1944, ibid., pp. 135—36; fireside chat, December 24, 1943,
ibid., XII, 558. See also Davis, “Roosevelt’s W orld Blueprint,” pp. 109—10; and
“W hat Really Happened at Teheran,” p. 37.
8 The Past as Prologue

II

The most obvious requirement in the American plan to prevent future

wars was to render harmless those nations responsible for World War II.
Early in January, 1943, Roosevelt told Congress that “if we do not pull
the fangs of the predatory animals of this world, they will multiply and
grow in strength— and they will be at our throats again once more in
a short generation.” Two weeks later at Casablanca, with Winston
Churchill at his side, the President announced the doctrine of uncondi­
tional surrender: Peace could come to the world, he told the assembled
press representatives, “only by the total elimination of German and Jap­
anese war power.” 12
There was nothing accidental about this statement, despite Roosevelt’s
subsequent efforts to make it seem a spur-of-the-moment decision. The
President had discussed unconditional surrender with the Joint Chiefs of
Staff before leaving Washington, and again with the Combined Chiefs
of Staff and Churchill at Casablanca. Moreover, the Advisory Committee
on Postwar Foreign Policy, a group of State Department officials and
private citizens set up in 1942 to advise on postwar planning, had al­
ready recommended demanding the unconditional surrender of defeated
enemies. Roosevelt was fully aware of this group’s conclusions before he
went to Casablanca.13
The call for unconditional surrender grew directly out of the lessons
of World War I. American officials attributed the rise of Hitler in part
to German bitterness over the gap between the promises of the Fourteen
Points and the realities of the Versailles treaty, in part to the myth,
propagated by the Nazis, that the German army had not suffered defeat
on the battlefield, but had been stabbed in the back by civilians in Ber­
lin. This time there should be no promises of lenient treatment, and no
12 State of the Union address, January 7, 1943, FDR: Public Papers, XII, 32—33;
press conference, January 24, 1943, FR: Casablanca, p. 727. See also Roosevelt to Tay­
lor, September 1, 1941, Roosevelt MSS, PSF: “Italy”; and Roosevelt to Jan Christiaan
Smuts, November 24, 1942, ibid., PSF: “Union of South Africa.”
13 Sherwood, Roosevelt and Hopkins, pp. 695—97; FR: Casablanca, pp. 506, 635;
Israel, ed., Long Diary, pp. 264—65; Harley Notter, Postwar Foreign Policy Prepara­
tion, p. 127. Secretary of State H ulls retrospective assertion that unconditional surren­
der did not figure in the State Department's planning prior to Casablanca is obviously
in error. (Hull, Memoirs, II, 1570.)
The Past as Prologue 9

doubt about the fact of defeat. “We gave up unconditional surrender the
last tim e. . . and now we have sacrificed thousands of lives because we
did not do a thorough job,” Mrs. Franklin D. Roosevelt wrote in June,
1944. “I think the mothers of this country . . . will not be so foolish as
to ask for a negotiated peace which is what we had before.” One month
later, F.D.R. himself told a press conference: “Practically all Germans
deny the fact they surrendered in the last war, but this time they are
going to know it. And so are the Japs.” 14
The need to disavow a negotiated peace seemed particularly acute fol­
lowing the Anglo-American invasion of North Africa in November,
1942. Through a series of miscalculations, plans to forestall resistance to
the landings had failed, forcing General Dwight D. Eisenhower and
Robert Murphy, his political adviser, to negotiate a cease-fire with Ad­
miral Jean François Darlan, the vice-premier of Vichy France. Despite
its justification on military grounds, this arrangement with a notorious
collaborator provoked violent criticism in the United States and Great
Britain, emphasizing to Roosevelt the desirability of precluding future
deals with Germany, Italy, or Japan.15
Unconditional surrender also fit in well with Roosevelt’s strategy of
military cooperation with the Soviet Union. In a moment of rashness the
President in May, 1942, had promised the Russians a second front in Eu­
rope before the end of the year. Almost immediately it had become clear
that this was militarily unfeasible. Churchill traveled to Moscow in Au­
gust to give Stalin the bad news, and to propose the North African land­
ings as a substitute. Stalin’s obvious disappointment, together with his
subsequent refusal to attend the Casablanca Conference, convinced Roo­
sevelt that the Russian dictator had “a feeling of loneliness.” The prom­
ise of unconditional surrender, F.D.R. felt, might boost Stalin’s morale, a
consideration of some importance since the military decisions made at
Casablanca had also lessened the chances for a cross-channel attack in
1943.16
Stalin welcomed the proclamation of unconditional surrender but ob-

14 Eleanor Roosevelt to Mrs. Emily C. P. Longstreth, June 12, 1944, Roosevelt

MSS, OF 394; Roosevelt press conference, July 29, 1944, FDR: Public Papers, XIII,
210. See also Anne Armstrong, Unconditional Surrender, p. 40.
15Feis, Churchill, Roosevelt, Stalin, p. 110; Sherwood, Roosevelt and Hopkins, p.
697.
16 Roosevelt-Molotov conversation. May 30, 1942, FR: 1942, III, 575—77; Feis,
Churchill, Roosevelt, Stalin, pp. 74—80, 99—101, 115; Joint Chiefs of Staff minutes,
10 The Past as Prologue

jected to publicizing it, complaining that it would only make the Ger­
mans fight harder. Roosevelt recognized this possibility, and stressed fre­
quently that his policy would not mean annihilation of the German
people. The President persisted in advocating unconditional surrender,
however, despite repeated efforts by diplomatic and military advisers to
get him to modify his stand.17 Only by publicly pressing the point could
Roosevelt assure the American people that he would not repeat the
World W ar I mistake of negotiating with the enemy.
The policy of unconditional surrender, the first element in the Ameri­
can program for preventing future wars, very likely strengthened more
than it weakened the anti-Axis coalition. As a “lowest common denomi­
nator,” it served to unite dissimilar allies behind the goal of total vic­
tory.18 Given Stalin’s almost paranoid suspicion that his American and
British partners might leave him alone to fight Hitler,19 the policy was
probably an essential first step in building a friendly relationship be­
tween the members of the Grand Alliance which would survive the end
of the war.

Defeating those nations responsible for World W ar II would accomplish

little, however, if conditions still existed which could produce future
meeting with Roosevelt, January 7, 1943, FR: Casablanca, p. 506. See also William L.
Langer, “Political Problems of a Coalition,*’ Foreign Affairs, XXVI (October, 1947),
84—85; John L. Chase, “Unconditional Surrender Reconsidered,” Political Science
Quarterly, LXX (June, 1955), 268—72; and Kent Roberts Greenfield, American Strat­
egy in World War 11, pp. 9-10.
17 Stalin remarks, November 28, 1943, FR: Tehran, p. 513. Roosevelt later denied
having heard Stalin criticize unconditional surrender at Teheran, but it is likely that
Stalin made his comments after Roosevelt had retired on the evening of the 28th.
(Hull, Memoirs, II, 1572; FR: Tehran, p. 511.) For Roosevelt’s effort to soften the
impact of unconditional surrender on the German people, see FR: Casablanca, p. 727;
FDR: Public Papers, XII, 80, 557—58. Efforts to get Roosevelt to change the uncondi­
tional surrender policy can be traced in John P. Glennon, “ ‘This Time Germany Is a
Defeated Nation*: The Doctrine of Unconditional Surrender and Some Unsuccessful
Attempts to Alter It, 1943—1944,” in Gerald N. Grob, ed.. Statesmen and Statecraft o f
the Modern West, pp. 109—51.
18 Armstrong, Unconditional Surrender, p. 39; Chase, “Unconditional Surrender Re­
considered,” pp. 271—72; Maurice Matloff, Strategic Planning, 1943—44, p. 40.
19 See, for example, Stalin to Roosevelt, April 3, 1945, FR: 1943, III, 742.
The Past as Prologue 11

wars. Hitler, Mussolini, and the Japanese militarists had not appeared
out of nowhere; without favorable environments their movements could
never have succeeded. Hoping to avoid new conflicts, American leaders
looked to recent history for insight into the causes of the present strug­
gle. In this light, the most important requirements for a peaceful post­
war world seemed to lie in the political and economic spheres: politi­
cally, to afford maximum opportunity for the peoples of the world to
determine their own future; economically, to prevent a recurrence of the
worldwide depression of the 1930s.
President Roosevelt articulated these goals almost a year before Pearl
Harbor in his “Four Freedoms” address, delivered to Congress in Janu­
ary, 1941. F.D.R. called for freedom of speech, freedom of religion, free­
dom from fear— all variants of the Wilsonian concept of self-
determination— and freedom from want, which he explained as
“economic understandings which will secure to every nation a healthy
peacetime life for its inhabitants.” Two months later, the President told
the White House Correspondents’ Association:

The world has no use for any Nation which, because of size or because of
military might, asserts the right to goosestep to world power over the bodies
of other Nations or other races. We believe that any nationality, no matter
how small, has the inherent right to its own nationhood.
We believe that the men and women of such Nations, no matter what
size, can, through the processes of peace, serve themselves and serve the
world by protecting the common man’s security; improve the standards of
healthful living, provide markets for manufacture and for agriculture.
Through that kind of peaceful service every Nation can increase its happi­
ness, banish the terrors of war, and abandon man’s inhumanity to man.

By following these principles, Roosevelt believed, mistakes of the past

could be avoided: “We will not accept a world, like the postwar world
of the 1920’s, in which the seeds of Hitlerism can again be planted and
allowed to grow.” 20
Self-determination was one World W ar I policy which, in the eyes of
Roosevelt and his advisers, had not failed. Tensions of the interwar pe­
riod had arisen, they believed, not from application of this principle but
from violations of it. Roosevelt regarded the plebiscite method of deter-
20 Speeches of January 6, March 15, and May 27, 1941, FDR: Public Papers, IX,
672, X, 69, 192.
12 The Past as Prologue

mining boundaries and forms of government as “the most substantial

contribution made by the Versailles Treaty.” There was no reason why
Croats should be forced, against their will, into governments with Serbs,
Hungarians, Italians, or even into independence without an expression
of their own views. Through plebiscites, conducted on a continuing
basis, such “century-old feuds” could be settled. “The whole point of this
is that peaceful determination . . . eliminates determination by war.” 21
At their meeting off the coast of Newfoundland in August, 1941,
Roosevelt and Churchill easily agreed that their countries would seek no
territorial gains for themselves, that they would oppose territorial
changes which did not accord with the wishes of the people involved,
that they would respect the right of all people to choose their own forms
of government, and that they would restore “sovereign rights and self-
government . . . to those who have been forcibly deprived of them.”
Roosevelt took these promises more seriously than did Churchill. The
British Prime Minister regarded the Atlantic Charter as only “an in­
terim and partial statement of war aims designed to assure all countries
of our righteous purpose.” But F.D.R. possessed a streak of idealism
which led him to believe that these lofty objectives might actually be at­
tained.22
Roosevelt's resolve to postpone political settlements until after the
war grew out of his commitment to self-determination. People fighting
for their lives or suffering occupation could hardly take time out to
21 Roosevelt to Taylor, September 1, 1941, Roosevelt MSS, PSF: “Italy.” See also
Roosevelt to Smuts, November 24, 1942, ibid., PSF: “Union of South Africa.” Sumner
Welles later described Roosevelt's faith in plebiscites as one example of the President’s
tendency to rely “upon a few favorite panaceas for problems that were actually too
basic and far-reaching in their origins and nature to admit of any easy solutions.”
(Seven Decisions That Shaped History, p. 136.)
22 DAFR, IV (1941—42), 209—10; Churchill, The Grand Alliance, p. 373. On Roo­
sevelt’s idealism, see W illard Range, Roosevelt*s World Order, p. 52; and Burns, Roo­
sevelt: The Soldier o f Freedom, pp. 298, 549, 608. Harry Hopkins told Robert Sher­
wood in 1941: “You and I are for Roosevelt because he's a great spiritual figure,
because he's an idealist, like Wilson, and he's got the guts to drive through against
any opposition to realize those ideals. Oh— he sometimes tries to appear tough and
cynical and flippant, but that’s an act he likes to put on, especially at press confer­
ences. . . . You can see the real Roosevelt when he comes out with something like
the Four Freedoms. And don’t get the idea that those are any catch phrases. He be­
lieves them! He believes they can be practically attained.” (Sherwood, Roosevelt and
Hopkins, p. 266.)
The Past as Prologue 13

choose their future form of government. Nor should the Allies attempt
to do this for them. F.D.R. regarded the secret commitments which the
Allies had made to each other during World War I as one of the most
serious mistakes of that conflict. These understandings had distracted the
Allies from fighting the common enemy, disillusioned the public when
they became known, and, because they violated the principle of self-de­
termination, sowed the seeds of World W ar II. Roosevelt intended to
handle things differently. He told Breckinridge Long in 1940 that he
planned “to operate in the open so that there would be no secret about
it. . . . There would be no ‘Colonel House’ business.” Harry Hopkins
and John G. Winant, the United States ambassador in London, warned
Anthony Eden in the summer of 1941 that the American people, upon
entering the war, “did not want to find after the event that we had all
kinds of engagements of which they had never been told.” A major
American concern at the Atlantic Conference later that summer was to
make sure that the British were free from secret commitments.23
The President’s attitude reflected the tendency of Americans to distin­
guish sharply between political and military matters. Victory was the
principal objective. Maneuvering among the Allies for postwar advan­
tage could only help the enemy. F.D.R. wrote in the summer of 1941
that while the Allies “could all agree on objectives, we could all fight
about the machinery to attain them.” Two years later he told a national
radio audience: “We must not relax our pressure on the enemy by tak­
ing time out to define every boundary and settle every political contro­
versy in every part of the world. The all-important thing now is to get
on with the war— and to win it.” Consistently more interested in
goals than means, Roosevelt betrayed considerable impatience with
those who demanded to know “what are you going to do about such and
such a five-square kilometer area in the world?” 24
23 Long Diary, February 9, 1940, Israel, ed.. L on g D iary, pp. 57—58; Eden Diary,
July 21, 1941, Eden, T h e R eck o n in g , p. 316; Wilson, T h e F irst S u m m it, pp. 183—85.
See also Welles, W h ere A r e W e H ea d in g ? p. 6; Notter, P ostw ar F oreign P olicy P rep -
aration , pp. 49—50; Hull, M em oirs, II, 1170; Neumann, A fte r V ictory, pp. 32—33;
and Lloyd C. Gardner, A rch itects o f Illusion, pp. 5—6.
24 Roosevelt to Adolf A. Berle, June 26, 1941, F D R : P ersonal L etters, II, 1175; fire­
side chat, July 28, 1943, F D R : P u blic Papers, XII, 333; press conference, October 29,
1943, ib id ., p. 459. On Roosevelt’s preoccupation with goals rather than means, see
Range, R oosevelt*s W o rld O rder, p. 28.
14 The Past as Prologue

The strategy of postponement also took into account domestic politi­

cal realities. Bipartisan agreement on foreign policy during the early
stages of the war went no further than the need to defeat Germany and
Japan. Not until late 1943 would leading Republicans and Democrats
endorse American membership in a postwar collective security organiza­
tion, and then only in guarded terms. Roosevelt feared that any detailed
discussion of political settlements would provoke intense controversy
within the United States, distracting attention from the war effort and
possibly threatening the nation’s willingness to assume future world re­
sponsibilities.25
The President’s resolve to adjourn international politics in wartime af­
fected American diplomacy in several areas. It was the basis of his bitter
quarrel with Charles de Gaulle over formation of a provisional govern­
ment in France. It caused recrimination between London and
Washington over the establishment of governments in occupied Italy
and liberated Greece.26 But Roosevelt’s policy met its most serious chal­
lenge when it came up against the Soviet Union’s determination to pro­
tect itself from future attack by creating spheres of influence along its
western border.
The weakness of both Russia and Germany after World W ar I had
made possible the emergence of a group of small independent states in
Eastern Europe. Several of these states— Poland, Finland, and the Bal­
tic States of Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia— had been part of the pre­
war Russian Empire, as had the Rumanian province of Bessarabia. The
resurgence of Russian and German power in the 1930s made the inde­
pendence of these countries increasingly precarious. Few people were
surprised when Stalin took advantage of his 1939 pact with Hitler to in­
corporate into the Soviet Union eastern Poland, the Baltic States, Bessa­
rabia, and portions of Finland. W hat did surprise many observers was
Stalin’s insistence on retaining these territories two years later, even after
Hitler’s attack had made Russia an ally of the United States and Great
Britain.27
25 H. Bradford Westerfield, F oreign P olicy a n d Party P olitics, p. 139; McNeill,
A m erica , B ritain , a n d Russia, pp. 403—5; Donald R. McCoy, “Republican Opposition
During Wartime, 1941-1945,” M id-A m erica, XLIX (July, 1967), 174-89.
26 Milton Viorst, H o stile A llie s, p. 75; Smith, A m erica n D ip lo m a cy D u rin g th e S ec­
on d W o rld W ar, pp. 6 8 -6 9 , 151.
27 John L. Snell, Illu sion a n d N ecessity, p. 3. A convenient survey o f the history of
The Past as Prologue 15

Stalin at no point kept his territorial ambitions secret. As early as

July, 1941, the Russians announced that they intended to retain the
parts of Poland they had taken two years earlier. In December of that
year, Stalin asked the British government to support his bid for all of the
Baltic States and territorial concessions from Finland and Rumania. “All
we ask for,” he told Anthony Eden, “is to restore our country to its for­
mer frontiers.” When Eden observed that Russian requirements might
violate the Atlantic Charter, Stalin asked grimly whether the charter
was directed against Germany or the Soviet Union.*28 Audacious as Sta­
lin's demands seemed at a time when the German army stood just out­
side Moscow, they became a persistent and unvarying goal of Soviet di­
plomacy throughout the rest of the war.
Churchill's government, painfully aware of how London's reluctance
to grant Moscow a free hand in Eastern Europe had contributed to the
Nazi-Soviet Pact, was reluctantly prepared to meet Stalin's wishes. Roo­
sevelt, however, urged the British to resist. With characteristic optimism,
he hoped that in time Soviet territorial ambitions in Eastern Europe
would simply go away. These claims stemmed, he believed, solely from
Russian fears of a resurgent Germany. W ith Hitler's defeat, Moscow’s
appetite for additional territory should disappear.29
But Roosevelt’s main reason for opposing Soviet territorial claims was
his concern that they would violate the principles of the Atlantic
Charter. Secretary of State Cordell Hull pointedly reminded F.D.R. of
how the Allies' secret agreements in World W ar I had conflicted with
the idealistic aims of President Wilson. W ith Roosevelt's approval, Hull
warned Eden even before the British Foreign Secretary went to Moscow
in December, 1941, that “above all there must be no secret accords.” On
learning of the extensive demands Stalin had made to Eden, Hull had
his advisers in the State Department draw up a lengthy memorandum

this region is in Vera Micheles Dean, “The U.S.S.R. and Post-War Europe,” Foreign
Policy Reports, XIX (August 15, 1943), 125—31.
28 FR: 1942, III, 495—96, 501—2. See also Eden, The Reckoning, p. 335; and Feis,
Churchill, Roosevelt, Stalin, pp. 31—32.
29 Welles memorandum of conversation with Lord Halifax, February 20, 1942, FR:
1942, III, 521. For the British position, see ibid., pp. 532, 552; and Eden, The Reck­
oning, p. 370. Roosevelt’s views on the relationship of the German question to Rus­
sian demands in Eastern Europe can be found in Jan Ciechanowski, Defeat in Victory,
p. 100; Hull, Memoirs, II, 1170; and in the Welles-Halifax conversation cited above.
16 The Past as Prologue

for the President arguing that acceptance of the Soviet Union's claims
“would destroy the meaning of one of the most important clauses of the
Atlantic Charter and would tend to undermine the force of the whole
document." 30
In the face of strong British pressure to accept the Russian demands,
Roosevelt did consider supporting a compromise whereby inhabitants of
territories to be absorbed into the Soviet Union would be allowed tq
leave if they wanted to. But this concession encountered strong opposi­
tion in the State Department. Assistant Secretary of State Adolf Berle la­
beled it a “Baltic Munich” that would put the United States into “a dan­
gerous position, both morally and realistically, and, I may add, in terms
of American politics.” By early May, 1942, Hull had persuaded the Pres­
ident to stand firm, warning the British that if they endorsed Stalin’s ter­
ritorial claims the United States might be forced to dissociate itself pub­
licly from the agreement.31
But the Western allies could not flatly turn Stalin down without
gravely endangering the alliance. Soviet Foreign Minister V. M. Molo­
tov arrived in London in May with instructions to insist on recognition
of Russian claims. Determined to head Molotov off, Roosevelt invited
him to Washington as well to discuss, as he wrote to Stalin, a “very im­
portant military proposal involving the utilization of our armed forces in
a manner to relieve your critical western front.” The tacit arrangement
soon became clear: Stalin would postpone seeking recognition of his
postwar territorial objectives in return for a British and American prom­
ise to open a second front in Europe in 1942. In London, Molotov
signed an Anglo-Soviet treaty of friendship which made no mention of
Russian territorial gains. In Washington shortly thereafter, Roosevelt
^W elles, S even D ecision s T h a t S h aped H isto ry , p. 135; Hull, M em oirs, II, 1170*
Hull to Winant, December 5, 1941, FR: 1 9 4 1 , I, 194—95; Department of State mem­
orandum, February 4, 1942, FR: 1 9 4 2 , III, 505—12. See also William C. Bullitt to
Roosevelt, December 5, 1941: “Don't let Churchill get you into any more specific en­
gagements than those in the Atlantic Charter. Try to keep him from engaging himself
vis-a-vis Russia. The treaties— if made— will be as difficult for you to handle as the
secret treaties were for Wilson.“ (Roosevelt MSS, PSF: “Bullitt.“)
31 Eden to Halifax, transmitted to Welles on March 12, 1942, FR: 1 9 4 2 , III, 532;
Welles memorandum of conversation with Halifax, April 1, 1942, ib id ., p. 538; Berle
to Welles, April 3, 1942, ib id ,, pp. 539—41; Hull, M em oirs, II, 1172. See also Nancy
Harvison Hooker, ed.. T h e M offat Papers, p. 380.
The Past as Prologue 17

formally promised the Russian foreign minister a second front in 1942.32

Relieved at having postponed the problem of Eastern Europe for the
time being, F.D.R. told Molotov that while “there might be a proper
time for raising this question, . . . the present was not the moment.”
Roosevelt congratulated Ambassador W inant for working out the An­
glo-Soviet treaty “in thoroughly acceptable form.” If the Russians had
pressed for their original demands, “it would have caused almost irrepa­
rable damage to the ideals of the war.” 33
But realities of power soon overwhelmed ideals. The second front did
not materialize, and by early 1943 Roosevelt had reluctantly concluded
that he could not keep Stalin from taking what he wanted in Eastern
Europe.34 Unfortunately, the President, still seeking to avoid divisive
controversies within the United States, failed to make this situation clear
to the American people. Conditioned by wartime rhetoric to expect a
peace settlement which would allow all nations to determine their own
future, Americans recoiled in shock and anger as they gradually became
aware of Moscow’s intention to dominate the postwar governments of
Eastern Europe. The resulting tension between the American principle
of self-determination and Russian security needs became the single most
important cause of the disintegration of the Grand Alliance.
Roosevelt did point out somewhat ruefully in his last state of the
union address that while power politics should not control international
relations, “we cannot deny that power is a factor in world politics, any
more than we can deny its existence as a factor in national politics.”

32 Roosevelt to Stalin, April 11, 1942, FR: 1 9 4 2 , III, 542—43; Roosevelt-Molotov

conversations, May 30 and June 1, 1942, ib id ., pp. 576-77, 582—83; White House
press release, June 11, 1942, ib id ., pp. 593—94. For the relationship of the second
front to Soviet territorial claims, see Harry Hopkins* memorandum of a conversation
with Eden, April 9, 1942, printed in Sherwood, R o o sevelt a n d H o p k in s, p. 526. Rob­
ert A. Divine points out that Roosevelt probably gave his second-front pledge out of a
desire to encourage the Soviet military effort on the eastern front, not as a reward for
abandoning territorial demands. (R o o sevelt an d W o rld W ar 11, pp. 85, 89.) It seems
clear, however, that the Russians believed that a bargain had been made. (See Standley
to Hull, July 22, 1942, FR: 1 9 4 2 , III, 613—14.) For Roosevelt’s concern about the
eastern front, see chapter 3.
33 Roosevelt-Molotov conversation. May 29, 1942, FR: 1942, III, 569; Roosevelt to
Winant, June 17, 1942, F D R : Personal L etters, II, 1329.
34 See chapter 5.
18 The Past as Prologue

One could only hope, Roosevelt continued, that power would be “linked
with responsibility, and obliged to defend and justify itself within the
framework of the general good.” 35 But by January, 1945, hopes that So­
viet and American concepts of the “general good” would coincide
seemed frail indeed.

IV
American leaders regarded reconstruction of the world’s economy as im­
portant a goal as self-determination if the conditions which caused wars
were to be eliminated. To them, the coincidence of world depression
with the rise of dictators seemed more than accidental— almost unani­
mously they accepted the argument that economic distress led to war. In
their planning to prevent future conflicts, Washington officials spent
much time thinking about what economic measures they could take to
keep such a depression from recurring. As Secretary of State Hull put it
in 1944: “A world in economic chaos would be forever a breeding
ground for trouble and war.” 36
The Roosevelt Administration quickly advanced clearer and more de­
tailed suggestions in the field of postwar foreign economic policy than in
other areas. This was not because top officials thought of international
relations primarily in economic terms, but simply because events of the
previous decade had already forced these men to devote considerable at­
tention to the relationship between foreign policy and economics. The
fact that economic diplomacy seemed less likely to provoke domestic po­
litical controversies than did other aspects of postwar planning also en­
couraged Administration leaders to proceed rapidly in this field.37
Cordell Hull provided much of the impetus behind American foreign
economic policy. The aged Secretary of State had long ago convinced
himself that economic nationalism caused wars. The solution, Hull be­
lieved, was to lower barriers to trade throughout the world:
35 State of the Union address» January 6, 1945, F D R : P u blic Papers, XIII, 498.
36 Hull, M em o irs, II, 1681. See also Kolko, P olitics o f W ar , pp. 242, 245—46.
37 Notter, P ostw ar F oreign P olicy P reparation, pp. 23—24; R. Gardner, S terlin g -D o l­
lar D ip lo m a cy, p. 8. Lloyd C. Gardner, E conom ic A sp ects o f N e w D ea l D iplom acy, is
the most complete survey of New Deal foreign economic policy.
The Past as Prologue 19

To me, unhampered trade dovetailed with peace; high tariffs, trade barriers,
and unfair economic competition, with war. Though realizing that many
other factors were involved, I reasoned that, if we could get a freer flow of
trade—freer in the sense of fewer discriminations and obstructions—so
that one country would not be deadly jealous of another and the living stand­
ards of all countries might rise, thereby eliminating the economic dissatis­
faction that breeds war, we might have a reasonable chance for lasting peace.
There was nothing original about this concept, which went back at least
to the days of David Ricardo and John Stuart Mill. Classical liberals
had always viewed commerce as the main bond between nations, and
most State Department economists adhered to this position.38 But the
combination of Hull’s political influence with his personal tenacity gave
the classical view a thrust which it might otherwise not have had
in the ideologically eclectic atmosphere of the Roosevelt Administra­
tion.
Hull owed his appointment as secretary of state more to his popular­
ity with Southern Democrats than to his expertise in foreign affairs. His
high standing with Congress gave the Tennessean something of an aura
of a public monument, making it impossible for Roosevelt to get rid of
him or to ignore his views. Moreover, Hull was tenacious. A close asso­
ciate noted that when “he gets an idea in the back of his head, it is
pretty hard to shake him loose from it.” Hull “had his ideas of what’s
right and what’s wrong,” Robert H. Jackson observed, “and by jingo
he’ll use his gun on the man that’s wrong.” Nothing demonstrated
Hull’s influence more clearly than the ease with which he forced the res­
ignation of Roosevelt’s personal friend and close adviser, Undersecretary
of State Sumner Welles, in August, 1943. Hull’s hatreds were implaca­
ble, Dean Acheson recalled, “not hot hatreds, but long cold ones. In no
hurry to ‘get’ his enemy, ‘get* him he usually did.” 39
38 Hull, M em oirs, I, 81. See also ib id ., II, 1735; Hull’s radio address of July 23,
1942, D A F R , V (1942—43), 10—11; R. Gardner, S terlin g -D o lla r D ip lo m a cy, pp.
12—15; and Arthur W. Schatz, “The Anglo-American Trade Agreement and Cordell
Hull’s Search for Peace, 1936—1938,” J ou rn al o f A m erica n H isto ry, LVII (June,
1970), 85—103. On the classical orientation of State Department economists, see
Alfred E. Eckes, “Bretton Woods: America’s New Deal for an Open World” (Ph.D.
dissertation. University of Texas, 1969), pp. 2—3, 29—71.
39 Donald F. Drummond, “Cordell Hull”, in Norman A. Graebner, ed.. A n U ncer­
tain T ra d itio n , p. 186; Long Diary, November 27, 1939, Israel, ed.. L on g D iary, p.
37; Louis Fischer interview with Jackson, January 27, 1945, Fischer MSS; Julius W.
20 The Past as Prologue

By 1940 almost all Administration leaders accepted the premise that

economic distress brought war. Secretary of Agriculture Henry A. W al­
lace described the relationship in March of that year:
When . . . the [American] loans stopped and the Smoot-Hawley Tariff was
enacted, the countries of Europe had to stop buying our goods because they
had no way to pay for them. They raised their own tariffs, slapped on quotas,
adopted new-fangled methods of stopping trade through import licensing
and exchange control. International trade broke down. Depression became
worldwide. Business collapse led to dictatorship in some countries, and dicta­
torship has finally plunged Europe once more into a costly war.
In his 1940 annual message to Congress, Roosevelt argued that the “de­
structive minefield” of trade restrictions built up during the interwar pe­
riod had been “one of the contributing causes of existing wars.” The
United States would have to use its influence after the war, the President
asserted, to see to it “that no one nation need feel compelled . . . to seek
by force of arms what it can well gain by peaceful conference.” *40
The State and Treasury Departments shared the task of formulating
specific plans to deal with the postwar economic situation. State assumed
major responsibility for removing barriers to trade by working for re­
newal of the Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act and by seeking to com-
mit other nations to liberal tariff policies. The Treasury concentrated on
reforming the international monetary system by creating mechanisms to
stabilize international currencies and to facilitate the flow of capital for
reconstruction and development. Although relations between the two de­
partments were not cordial— Hull with some justification suspected
Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau, Jr., of trying to usurp State De­
partment responsibilities— their plans for the postwar world comple­
mented each other neatly, both looking toward restoring the free flow of
world trade within a capitalist framework.41
Pratt, C o rd ell H u ll , II, 615—19, 802—3; Dean Acheson, P resen t a t th e C reation t p. 9.
See also Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., T h e C o m in g o f th e N e w D eal, pp. 190—91; Lan­
ger and Gleason, T h e C h allen ge to Isolation, pp. 7—8; and Eden, T h e R eckon in g, p.
440.
40 Wallace speech of March 12, 1940, copy in Roosevelt MSS, PPF 1820, Box 24;
Roosevelt annual message, January 3, 1940, F D R : P u blic Papers, IX, 5—6. See also
Roosevelt to Myron C. Taylor, September 1, 1941, Roosevelt MSS, PSF: “Italy”; Roo­
sevelt speech of March 15, 1941, F D R : P u blic Papers, X, 69; Adolf A. Berle speech
of October 15, 1942, D A F R , V (1942—43), 27—29; and Notter, P ostw ar Foreign P o l­
icy P reparation, p. 128.
41 Kolko, P olitics o f W ar, pp. 251—52. On Treasury Department planning, see John
The Past as Prologue 21

Fears of a postwar depression inside the United States intensified Ad­

ministration concern about foreign economic policy. Fully aware that
the New Deal had not solved the problem of unemployment in peace­
time, Roosevelt and his associates hoped that foreign markets would
help absorb the vast quantity of goods which would have to be produced
if employment levels were to be maintained after the fighting had
stopped. As presidential adviser Oscar Cox put it: “Jobs after the war
will depend not only on our markets at home but on our markets
abroad.” The President committed himself in January, 1943, to govern­
ment insurance against economic hazards “from the cradle to the grave.”
But F.D.R. was warned in the fall of 1944 that curtailment of military
spending would throw at least four and a half million people out of
work: “Unless steps are taken to cushion the effects of this sharp cut in
total spending, the decline in business activity— in production, in­
comes, and employment— may snowball to alarming proportions.”
Finding markets for surplus products might help ease this problem of
domestic reconversion. “While we shall not take advantage of any coun­
try,” Roosevelt wrote to Hull in October, 1944, “we will see that Ameri­
can industry has its fair share in the world markets.” 42
But Washington’s emphasis on reviving postwar trade stemmed from
more than narrow considerations of economic self-interest. American
leaders sincerely believed that opening channels of international trade
would raise living standards throughout the world and lessen the danger
of future war, an objective clearly in the interest of all nations. Roose­
velt neatly summarized the motives behind American foreign economic
policy in answering a reporter’s question as to whether the United States
would help rehabilitate other nations after the war: “Sure, we are going
to rehabilitate them. Why? . . . Not only from the humanitarian point
of view— you needn’t stress that unless you want to— there’s some­
thing in it— but from the point of view of our own pocketbooks, and
our safety from future war.” Somewhat more formally, a State Depart-
Morton Blum, M orgen th au D iaries: Y ears o f W ar, chapter 5; and Eckes, “Bretton
Woods,“ pp. 29-71.
42 Oscar Cox draft of a speech for Roosevelt, dated October 2, 1944, copy in Cox
Diary, Cox MSS; Roosevelt State of the Union address, January 7, 1943, F D R : P u blic
Papers, XII, 31; Lauchlin Currie to Roosevelt, September 8 and 9, 1944, Roosevelt
MSS, OF 396, OF 264; Roosevelt to Hull, October 17, 1944, ib id ., PPF 8101. See
also L. Gardner, E conom ic A sp ects o f N e w D ea l D ip lo m a cy, pp. 282—83; and Kolko,
P olitics o f W ar, pp. 252-53.
22 The Past as Prologue

ment committee proclaimed late in 1943 that restoration of world trade

would be essential “to the attainment of full and effective employment
in the United States and elsewhere, to the preservation of private enter­
prise, and to the success of an international security system to prevent fu­
ture wars.” 43
The fate of American postwar foreign economic policy clearly de­
pended upon the attitude of other members of the Grand Alliance.
Remembering Britain’s vital role in the prewar world economy, Wash­
ington officials quickly began negotiations with their English counter­
parts to secure London’s commitment to multilateral trading policies and
reform of the international monetary system. The British were hesitant
— an unconditional ’commitment to multilateralism would threaten
London’s sheltered export market, thus exacerbating English economic
weakness— but blunt pressure from American negotiators eventually
forced London to accept most of Washington’s plans. Dependent on
American aid for both its war effort and postwar reconstruction, Great
Britain was in no position to resist.44
Obtaining Moscow’s agreement proved to be more difficult. Despite
ideological differences, American planners clearly hoped for Russian co­
operation. Harry Dexter White, the Treasury Department’s leading cur­
rency expert, wrote in May, 1942, that it would be an “egregious error”
to exclude Russia from the International Monetary Fund and the World
Bank simply because it had a socialist economy. At the Moscow Confer­
ence in October, 1943, Secretary of State Hull stressed the importance of
getting the Russians to accept American economic plans. Treasury Secre­
tary Morgenthau worked energetically throughout the Bretton Woods
Conference in the summer of 1944 to secure Russian adherence to the
International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. As in the case of
43 Roosevelt press conference, November 24, 1942, F D R : P u blic Papers , XI, 492;
“Summary of the Interim Report of the Special Committee on the Relaxation of Trade
Barriers/' December 8, 1943, printed in Notter, P ostw ar F oreign P olicy Preparation,
p. 622. See also Roosevelt speeches of January 7, 1943, and January 11, 1944, FDR:
P u blic Papers, XII, 32, XIII, 34, 41; Berle speech of October 15, 1942, D A F R , V
(1942—43), 23; and Harry Dexter White preliminary draft, “United Nations Stabiliza­
tion Fund and a Bank for Reconstruction of the United and Associated Nations," copy
in Morgenthau Diary, May 8, 1942, p. 231, Morgenthau MSS.
44 R. Gardner, S terlin g -D o lla r D ip lo m a cy, is the definitive treatment of these nego­
tiations, but see also E. F. Penrose, E con om ic P lan n in g f o r Peace; and L. Gaidner,
E con om ic A sp ects o f N e w D ea l D ip lo m a cy, pp. 275—91.
The Past as Prologue 23

Great Britain, American officials did not hesitate to employ economic

incentives to win Soviet cooperation— in this case, the prospect of a
massive postwar reconstruction loan.45 But unlike Britain, the Soviet
Union, not solely dependent on the United States, eventually elected to
remain aloof.
Moscow’s refusal to participate in the Bretton Woods monetary sys­
tem or to relax trade barriers in the areas under its control was an effect
rather than a cause of the Cold War. Once the Grand Alliance had col­
lapsed in mutual recrimination over the fate of Eastern Europe, eco­
nomic cooperation became impossible. Washington chose to withhold
the one instrument which might have influenced Soviet economic
behavior— a postwar reconstruction loan— in hopes of extracting
political concessions. Moscow responded by taking what it needed for re­
construction from the Soviet zone of Germany. The American belief that
Stalin might agree to integrate the Soviet economy with those of the
world’s leading capitalist nations reflected a fundamental lack of sophis­
tication which pervaded much of Washington’s wartime economic plan­
ning. To attempt to construct a new world economic order without first
resolving the deep political differences which divided the United States
and the Soviet Union was naïve in the extreme, for, in the long run, pol­
itics turned out to be more important than economics for the leaders of
both nations. The unrealistic nature of United States foreign economic
planning demonstrated clearly the extent to which excessive concentra­
tion on past mistakes could impair efforts to deal with future realities.

But none of these measures— unconditional surrender, self-determina­

tion, the lowering of barriers to trade— seemed likely to prevent new
wars if the United States reverted to isolationism. Most informed observ-
ers, both inside and outside the government, now believed that Ameri­
cans had made a tragic mistake in 1919 when they refused to join the
45 White, “United Nations Stabilization Fund,” Morgenthau Diary, May 8, 1942,
pp. 256—57, Morgenthau MSS; minutes, October 29, 1943 session, Moscow Foreign
Ministers’ Conference, FR: 1943, I, 665—66; Blum, Morgenthau Diaries: Years o f
Warf pp. 245-50, 259-65, 275-76.
24 The Past as Prologue

League of Nations. “Would we not . . . have been better advised,”

Undersecretary of State Welles asked in 1942, “if we had been willing
20 years ago to join with other free peoples of the earth in promoting an
international order which . . . could have prevented . . . the total war
of today?” Until the United States agreed to cooperate with other na­
tions to police the world against threats of future aggression, there could
be no guarantee of lasting peace.46
There was, however, considerable disagreement as to what form this
cooperation should take. Many old Wilsonians favored a revival of the
League of Nations, with its provisions for collective action against ag-
gressqrs. A few world federalists wanted to move beyond the League to
establish a true global government. Others argued that formal structures
meant little; peace would come most quickly through restoration of a
world balance of power. Still others saw preservation of big-power unity
as the chief essential for avoiding new wars. Franklin D. Roosevelt’s
ideas fell into this last category.47
Though originally a supporter of the League of Nations, Roosevelt by
the outbreak of World W ar II had departed substantially from the posi­
tion of his former chief, Woodrow Wilson. The League’s failure to keep
peace in the 1930s disillusioned F.D.R., convincing him that only the
prompt and effective use of force, not interminable debate, could prevent
aggression. The President wrote in September, 1941:
In the present complete world confusion, it is not thought advisable at this
time to reconstitute a League of Nations which, because of its size, makes for
disagreement and inaction. . . . There seems no reason why the principle of
the trusteeship in private affairs should not be extended to the international
field. Trusteeship is based on the principle of unselfish service. For a time at
least there are many minor children among the peoples of the world who
need trustees in their relations with other nations and peoples, just as there
are many adult nations or peoples which must be led back into a spirit of
good conduct.
After Pearl Harbor Roosevelt toughened his position, arguing that in
the immediate postwar period the United States, the Soviet Union, Great
Britain, and China would have to act not as “trustees” but as “sheriffs”
46 Divine, Second Chance, pp. 34, 68—69; Welles radio address of December 6,
1942, DAFR, V (1942-43), 36.
47 Divine, Second Chance, p. 62.
The Past as Prologue 25

or “policemen” for the rest of the world. The Big Four would remove
from the hands of other nations, friendly as well as hostile, all weapons
more dangerous than rifles. Periodic inspection would ensure against
clandestine rearmament. “If any nation menaced the peace,” the Presi­
dent explained to Soviet Foreign Minister Molotov, “it could be block­
aded and then if still recalcitrant, bombed.” Roosevelt acknowledged
that this might be “peace by dictation,” but hoped that defeated enemies
would see this as being more in their interests than periodically recur­
ring wars.48
F.D.R.*s concept of the Four Policemen did not preclude eventual for­
mation of a world wide organization of nations “for the purpose of full
discussion” as long as “management” was left up to the Big Four. But
the President wanted to delay establishing such a body until several
years after the war. The victorious allies of World War I, he believed,
had set up the League of Nations too soon after the fighting had
stopped. This time there would be no peace conference until the world
had recovered from “shell shock,” a process Roosevelt thought might
take from two to four years. During the interim, the Big Four would
keep order.49
Roosevelt doubted that the American people were yet ready for mem­
bership in a new world body. Painfully aware of Wilson’s experience
with the Senate, chronically prone to exaggerate domestic opposition to
his foreign policy, Roosevelt hesitated to declare himself publicly in
favor of a new collective security agency. During his meeting with
Churchill in August, 1941, he refused to allow a commitment to post-
48 Roosevelt to Myron C. Taylor, September 1, 1941, Roosevelt MSS, PSF: “Italy”;
Roosevelt-Molotov conversation, May 29, 1942, FR: 1942, III, 568—69. See also an
unsigned memorandum of Roosevelt’s conversation with Clark Eichelberger, Novem­
ber 13, 1942, F D R : P ersonal L etters, II, 1366—67; Eden’s account of a conversation
with Roosevelt on March 15, 1943, Eden, T h e R eckon in g, p. 431; Roosevelt to
George Norris, September 21, 1943, F D R : P ersonal L etters, II, 1446—47; and Charles
E. Bohlen’s minutes of Roosevelt’s conversation with Stalin, November 29, 1943, FR:
T ehran, pp. 530—32. Two convenient summaries of Roosevelt’s Four Policemen con­
cept are Divine, R o o se v e lt a n d W o rld W ar 11, pp. 57—58; and Range, R oo sevelt's
W o rld O rder, pp. 172—76. In his May 29, 1942, conversation with Molotov, Roose­
velt conditioned China’s participation as one of the Four Policemen upon its ability to
achieve a unified central government.
49 Roosevelt to Taylor, September 1, 1941, Roosevelt MSS, PSF: “Italy”; press con­
ference, September 7, 1943, F D R : P u blic Papers, XII, 375—76; Roosevelt to Norris,
September 21, 1943, F D R : Personal L etters, II, 1446—47.
26 The Past as Prologue

war international organization to be written into the Atlantic Charter.

Throughout 1942, Roosevelt permitted subordinates to launch occa­
sional trial balloons, but avoided personal comment on the matter.50
Pressure quickly mounted, however, for establishment of a collective
security organization before the end of the fighting. Internationalists
argued that smaller nations would resent their exclusion from the
peace-keeping process. A world body representing all nations would, as
Sumner Welles put it, act as a kind of “safety valve.” Moreover, the
United States would have more influence over its allies during the war
than it would after victory. Welles believed that if Wilson had tried to
commit his allies to the League of Nations before the Armistice, “the
Treaty of Versailles might well have produced different results.” Secre­
tary of State Hull worried that the Four Policemen might assume re­
sponsibility for specific parts of the world, and that this might lead to
spheres of influence. The “self-restraint” which the United States had
shown in Latin America “might not be exercised by a great power in an­
other region.” Finally, internationalist groups throughout the country
had launched a massive campaign to drum up support for a new attempt
at world organization. These efforts quickly paid off, with public opinion
polls by the summer of 1942 showing that three out of four Americans
now favored United States membership in some form of postwar collec­
tive security organization.51
Roosevelt, flexible as usual, allowed the State Department to proceed
with the planning for such an organization. In a carefully worded speech
cleared with the President in advance, Hull called in July, 1942, for cre-
50 Sherwood, R o o se v e lt a n d H o p k in s, p. 360; Divine, S econ d Chance, pp. 40, 44,
49, 83—84; Wilson, T h e F irst S u m m it, p. 198; Welles, W h ere A re W e H eading? p.
13. For Roosevelt’s tendency to exaggerate domestic opposition, see Langer and Glea­
son, T h e C h allen ge to Isolation, pp. 5—6; and Smith, A m erica n D ip lo m a c y D u rin g
th e S eco n d W o rld W ar, p. 9.
51 Welles account of conversation with Roosevelt, August 11, 1941, W h ere A re W e
H ea d in g ? pp. 5, 19—20; Hull, M em oirs, II, 1644; Divine, S econ d Chance, pp. 53—69.
Oscar Cox cited yet another reason for moving ahead on planning for international or­
ganization: “The persons who are good at this political field [presumably State De­
partment officials] will have been so excluded from the conduct of the war that they
will have the time and energies to devote to it.” (Cox to Harry Hopkins, June 24,
1942, copy in Cox Diary, Cox MSS.) State Department planners apparently assumed
from the beginning that a new world organization would be set up before the end of
the war. (Notter, P ostw ar F oreign P olicy P reparation, p. 102.)
The Past as Prologue 27

ation of “some international agency . . . which can, by force, if

necessary— keep the peace among nations in the future.” By April,
1944, the State Department had developed a compromise plan designed
to satisfy both Roosevelt and the internationalists. The United Nations
would resemble the League of Nations in its universal membership—
all countries fighting against Germany and Japan would be invited to
join. But the United States, Great Britain, the Soviet Union, or China
could, as permanent members of the Security Council, employ the veto
to prevent the world organization from acting against their will. Roose­
velt approved this arrangement, and authorized Hull to invite represent­
atives of the Big Four to meet later that summer at Dumbarton Oaks,
just outside Washington, to discuss the American proposal.52
The State Department’s plan preserved the essence of Roosevelt’s Four
Policemen concept, but in a framework less repugnant to internation­
alists who feared a new Quadruple Alliance. The Security Council veto
maintained the principle of big-power unity which F.D.R. knew was
necessary to secure Russian cooperation. Simultaneously, the veto im­
proved prospects for Senate endorsement of the United Nations by mak­
ing it clear that the world organization could not force the United States
into war against its will, thus defusing in advance a major argument
used against Article X of the League of Nations. It is difficult to know
whether Roosevelt himself really expected the new collective security or­
ganization to fulfill the hopes of its founders. “I dream dreams,” he once
wrote, “but am, at the same time, an intensely practical person.” Realis­
tically, he continued to rely on cooperation with the Soviet Union and
other great powers as the best chance for keeping the peace. But at the
same time his idealism led him to hope that the rule of law might even­
tually replace international anarchy, and that the United Nations might
be the first step in that process.53 Certain that the new organization
52 Hull radio address, July 23, 1942, D A F R , V (1942-43), 9; Divine, S econ d
Chance , pp. 67—68; Notter, P ostw ar F oreign P olicy P reparation , pp. 93, 127—29,
533—34; Hull, M em o irs , II, 1652-53, 1662-63.
53 Roosevelt to Jan Christiaan Smuts, November 24, 1942, Roosevelt MSS, PSF:
“Union of South Africa’*; Range, R oosevelt*s W o rld O rder, p. 52. James MacGregor
Burns has observed that Roosevelt was “a deeply divided m an .. . . He was a practical
man who proceeded now boldly, now cautiously, step by step toward immediate ends.
He was also a dreamer and a sermonizer who spelled out lofty goals. He was both a
Soldier of the Faith, battling with his warrior comrades for an ideology of peace and
28 The Past as Prologue

could at least do no harm, Roosevelt directed his waning energies during

his last year toward securing approval of the two agencies in whose
hands success of the world body rested: the government of the Soviet
Union and the Senate of the United States.
Soviet support proved surprisingly easy to obtain, possibly because Sta­
lin, like Roosevelt, was not looking solely to the United Nations for
postwar security. Secretary of State Hull secured Russian commitment to
the principle of international organization at the Moscow Foreign Minis­
ters' Conference in the fall of 1943, and at Dumbarton Oaks, in the
summer of 1944, Big Four representatives sketched in details generally
in accordance with the State Department's suggestions. At Yalta Roose­
velt did have to overcome Russian reservations regarding voting proce­
dure in the Security Council and membership in the General Assembly,
but with this accomplished the Big Four were in sufficient agreement to
invite their allies to San Francisco in April, 1945, to draw up and sign
the United Nations Charter.*54
Winning the Senate's approval seemed, at first, as formidable an un­
dertaking as dealing with Moscow. Public expressions of isolationist sen­
timent had grown scarce after Pearl Harbor, but a distinct wariness
about accepting postwar international commitments still lingered among
prominent Republicans. Roosevelt and Hull worried deeply about the ef­
fect these Republicans might have in the Senate, where the opposition of
any more than one-third of the membership could prevent American
participation in the new world organization. Determined not to repeat
Woodrow Wilson's mistakes, they resolved not to let the issue of inter­
national organization become a political football.55
freedom, and a Prince of the State, protecting the interests of his nation in a threaten­
ing world." ("FDR: The Untold Story of His Last Year," Saturday R e v ie w , LIII
[April 11, 1970], 15.) On the United Nations as a reflection of the Four Policemen
concept, see Divine, S econ d Chance, pp. 182—83.
54 The Four-Power Declaration, signed at Moscow on November 1, 1943, an­
nounced that the United States, the Soviet Union, Great Britain, and China "recognize
the necessity of establishing at the earliest practicable date a general international organ­
ization, based on the principle of the sovereign equality of all peace-loving states,
and open to membership by all such states, large and small, for the maintenance of in­
ternational peace and security." (FR: 1 9 4 3 , I» 756.) For subsequent negotiations with
the Russians, see Divine, S econ d Chance, chapters 9—11.
55 Hull, M em o irs, II, 1635—38; Roosevelt press conference. May 30, 1944, F D R :
P u b lic Papers, XIII, 141—43. See also Welles, W h ere A r e W e H eadin g? pp. 20—22;
and Notter, P ostw ar F oreign P olicy P reparation, pp. 195—96.
The Past as Prologue 29

The President consistently stressed how the new world body would
differ from the League of Nations. The United Nations, he told a press
conference, would not concern itself with such questions as “whether we
were to build a new dam on the Conestoga Creek,” but would instead
establish machinery for “talking things over with other Nations, without
taking away the independence of the United States in any shape, man­
ner, or form.” When asked whether the new peace plan would resemble
Wilson’s Fourteen Points, F.D.R. replied hastily: “Oh, no. Oh, no. . . .
Things like points, well, are principles. This is a working organization
that we are talking about.” Seeking to avoid the disillusionment which
had greeted the League, Roosevelt repeatedly warned against expecting
too much. It was unrealistic, he said late in 1944, to expect a peace­
keeping organization to be set up immediately “with the telephones in,
and the plumbing complete— the heating system and the electric ice
boxes all functioning perfectly, all furnished with linen and silver—
and with the rent prepaid.” Perfectionism was as much a danger as iso­
lationism: “Let us not forget that the retreat to isolationism a quarter of
a century ago was started not by a direct attack against international co­
operation but against alleged imperfections of the peace.” 56
Hull likewise was determined to avoid what he called “the crucifying
consequences o f. . . partisan politics.” From the beginning he made cer­
tain that Republicans were represented on the State Department’s Advi­
sory Committee on Postwar Foreign Policy. Prior to the Dumbarton
Oaks Conference, he submitted the State Department’s plan for interna­
tional organization to scrutiny by a bipartisan delegation of influential
senators. After the 1944 political conventions, Hull arranged with John
Foster Dulles, representing Republican nominee Thomas E. Dewey, to
keep the issue out of the presidential campaign. “I have seldom worked
harder on any project,” Hull later wrote. “I was convinced that, if I did
not reach a satisfactory agreement with him, successful American partici­
pation in an international security organization might be seriously jeop­
ardized.” Following the Yalta Conference, Roosevelt and Edward R. Stet-
tinius, Jr., Hull’s successor as secretary of state, named several promi­
nent Republicans to the American delegation to the San Francisco
56 Press conference of May 30, 1944, FDR: Public Papers, XIII, 141, 146; speech to
the Foreign Policy Association, October 21, 1944, ibid., p. 350; State of the Union ad­
dress, January 6, 1945, ibid., p. 498.
30 The Past as Prologue

Conference. This strategy of bipartisanship paid off handsomely when

the United Nations Charter came before the Senate on July 28,
1945— it passed by a vote of 89 to 2.57
But bipartisanship had its price. The necessity of reaching agreement
with leading Republicans reinforced F.D.R.’s tendency to avoid public
discussion of details of the postwar settlement. One reason why the Sen­
ate had rejected the League of Nations had been Wilson’s tactic of
embedding the charter in a peace treaty which many Americans consid­
ered unjust. If the degree to which Soviet postwar intentions conflicted
with American ideals became known, bipartisan support for the United
Nations might begin to erode. Republican Senator Arthur H. Vanden-
berg of Michigan, a staunch prewar isolationist whose vote was crucial
to the Administration, made it clear that he would support American
membership in the new world organization only if the peace settlement
accorded with the principles of the Atlantic Charter. This situation made
it even less likely that Roosevelt would attempt to prepare the American
people for the demands Stalin was sure to make in Eastern Europe.58
International organization performed a function on the domestic front
similar to that of unconditional surrender among members of the Grand
Alliance. Both were “lowest common denominators”: areas of agreement
which all sides could endorse, while at the same time concealing differ­
ences on other, more controversial issues. Inevitably, both became pana­
ceas, leading many to think that the attainment of unconditional surren­
der or the establishment of the United Nations alone would be sufficient
to bring the new era of peace which everyone sought. No one illustrated
the millennial quality of this thinking better than Cordell Hull in an
address which he made to a joint session of Congress upon his return
from the Moscow Foreign Ministers’ Conference in November, 1943.
Once the new international organization went into effect, the Secretary
of State told the wildly applauding congressmen, “there will no longer
be need for spheres of influence, for alliances, for balance of power, or
any other of the special arrangements through which, in the unhappy
57 Hull, M e m o irs , II, 1635, 1656, 1693; Pratt, C o rd e ll H u ll, II, 718-38; Divine,
S econ d C hance , pp. 270—71, 313.
58 Vandenberg to Hull, May 3, 1944, Arthur H. Vandenberg, Jr., ed.. T h e P rivate
Papers o f S en ator V an den berg, pp. 97—98; Vandenberg Diary, May 11, 1944, ibid., p.
96; Westerfield, F oreign P olicy a n d P arty P o litics, pp. 144—45. For background on
Vandenberg, see C. David Tompkins, S en ator A rth u r H . V an den berg.
The Past as Prologue 31

past, the nations strove to safeguard their security or to promote their

interest.*'59 Such assertions could only lead to the very disillusionment
which Roosevelt hoped to avoid.

Preoccupation with the past seriously clouded the American vision of

the postwar world. Washington's commitment to unconditional surren­
der, self-determination, the revival of world trade, and international or­
ganization all grew out of determination to avoid mistakes which had
led to World W ar II. None of these objectives came to grips with the
realities of a postwar world which would see two great superpowers con­
fronting each other over the corpse of Germany. Roosevelt’s “grand de­
sign” for cooperation with Russia did take into account the new situa­
tion, but the President failed to build the popular consensus behind his
program which would ensure its implementation. Obsessed himself by
the errors of the past, Roosevelt fully supported policies designed to
avoid them, never realizing the extent to which these plans would un­
dermine his other great goal of preserving the Grand Alliance intact
after victory.
59 Congressional Record, November 18, 1943, pp. 9678—79. See also Armstrong,
Unconditional Surrender, p. 39; and McNeill, America, Britain, and Russia, p. 501.
 The Soviet Union and
W orld Revolution:
The American View , 1 9 4 1 - 1 9 4 4

Before Roosevelt’s plan for postwar cooperation with the Soviet Union
could go into effect, however, Americans would have to come to terms
with a perplexing anomaly of the wartime situation: the fact that the
United States was fighting alongside an ally officially committed to a
hostile ideology. Nothing had done more to poison Soviet-American re­
lations prior to World W ar II than the Kremlin’s self-proclaimed ambi­
tion to work, through the Communist International, for the violent over­
throw of capitalism throughout the world. As late as 1939, public
opinion polls showed that most citizens of the United States, if forced to
choose between communism and fascism, would have preferred the lat­
ter.1
1 Warren B. Walsh, “W hat the American People Think of Russia,“ Public Opinion
Quarterly, VIII (Winter, 1944—45), 515. One contemporary study suggested that
Americans sympathized more with the basic principles of communism than with those
of fascism, but that they opposed communist teachings on the single subject of prop­
erty rights so intensely that, confronted with a choice, most would have chosen fas­
cism. (Daniel Katz and Hadley Cantril, “An Analysis of Attitudes Toward Fascism
and Communism,” Journal o f Abnormal and Social Psychology, XXXV [1940],
362-65.)
The Soviet Union and W orld Revolution 33

Yet by the end of 1941, the United States had entered the war on the
side of the world’s leading communist state. Through a curious kind of
illogic the Russians’ vigorously successful resistance to Hitler purified
them ideologically in the eyes of Americans. Surely, the argument ran,
any nation which was fighting so valiantly against a common enemy
could not espouse so repugnant a doctrine as communism. Reassessing
recent events in this light, many informed observers came to believe that
Stalin had fundamentally altered the ideological orientation of his own
regime; that the Soviet Union was in the process of abandoning commu­
nism in fact, if not in name.
Evidence did exist to support this argument. No Comintern congress
had been held since 1935, and the activities of that organization in the
years preceding the outbreak of war had been inconspicuous. Stalin had
launched a campaign within the USSR to rehabilitate the heroes of pre­
revolutionary Russia, and had even demonstrated a cautious tolerance of
the Russian Orthodox Church. The leader of the international commu­
nist movement appeared surprisingly unsympathetic to the efforts of
left-wing organizations outside the Soviet Union, and in the summer of
1943 went so far as to order abolition of the Comintern.2 In retrospect,
these seem to have been tactical maneuvers on Stalin’s part to generate
maximum support, both inside and outside the Soviet Union, for the
struggle against Germany. But at the time many Americans interpreted
them as signs that the Russians were developing a democratic system of
government, in which traditional communist ideology would have no
place.
Americans at no point abandoned their antipathy toward that philos­
ophy, as bipartisan denunciations of the Communist Party of the United
States during the 1944 presidential campaign showed. But the commu­
nist movement no longer appeared to be a monolithic organization di­
rected from Moscow. By disclaiming the goal of international revolution,
Stalin seemed to have removed the chief impediment to postwar cooper­
ation with the capitalist world, thus greatly facilitating implementation
of President Roosevelt’s “grand design.”
2 Alexander Werth, Russia at War, pp. 247—49, 429—38; McNeill, America, Brit­
ain, and Russia, p. 316.
34 The Soviet Union and W orld Revolution

I
Cooperation with the United States and Great Britain in the war against
Hitler greatly improved the Soviet Union’s image in the American mass
media. In the interests of Allied unity, articulate observers generally did
what they could to gloss over the less savory aspects of Stalin’s regime
when reporting on the Soviet war effort. In the process, many of them
came to believe that profound changes had actually taken place inside
Russia. Stressing Stalin’s apparent commitment to “socialism in one
country,” they argued that Moscow was no longer interested in world
revolution and speculated that, in time, the Soviet and American systems
of government might become very much alike. Distasteful episodes in re­
cent Russian history— the purges of the mid-1950s, the Nazi-Soviet
Pact, the seizure of the Baltic States, the partition of Poland, the Russo-
Finnish War— could be explained, if not justified, as measures to pro­
tect the Soviet Union against future German attack. Perceiving no sig­
nificant conflicts of interest between Washington and Moscow, these
observers predicted that the two nations would have no difficulty in
building a peaceful relationship after the war.
The most vocal exponent of this point of view was Joseph E. Davies,
a wealthy Wisconsin lawyer who had served as American ambassador to
the Soviet Union from January, 1937, through June, 1938. Davies owed
his appointment more to friendship with Roosevelt and generous cam­
paign contributions than to knowledge of Russia. Foreign Service officers
attached to the Moscow Embassy resented his selection as a replacement
for William C. Bullitt, whom they respected, and for a time considered
resigning in protest. The new ambassador’s willingness to condone the
Moscow purge trials produced paroxysms of rage among trained Em­
bassy experts like the young George F. Kennan, who recalled being sent
regularly “to fetch the ambassador his sandwiches, while he exchanged
sententious judgments with the gentlemen of the press concerning the
guilt of the victims.” 3
3 “Joseph E. Davies/’ Current Biography, 1942, pp. 177—80; Richard H. Ullman,
“The Davies Mission and United States-Soviet Relations, 1937—1941/* World Politics,
IX (January, 1957), 222—27; George F. Kennan, Memoirs, pp. 82—83.
The Soviet Union and W orld Revolution 35

Nevertheless, Davies proved to be more accurate than the professional

diplomats in predicting the Nazi-Soviet Pact of 1939. In 1941, almost
alone he maintained that the Soviet Union would withstand Hitler's in­
vasion. Though Davies later admitted privately that his predictions had
merely been lucky guesses, they won him considerable influence with the
American public and the Roosevelt Administration as an expert on Rus­
sian affairs. Davies used his position to work for closer ties between the
United States and the Soviet Union and, despite poor health, brought to
this task energy, enthusiasm, and a shrewd sense of publicity. Following
the German attack on Russia, he spoke frequently in support of extend­
ing lend-lease to the Soviet Union. He also obtained from the State De­
partment an unusual grant of permission to publish records of his Rus­
sian experiences in a book, Mission to Moscow, which appeared late in
1941.4
Mission to Moscow was an astonishing mixture of the ephemeral and
the significant. It contained confidential reports from Davies to the State
Department and the President, excerpts from Davies' personal journal,
and records of private conversations with high government officials, in­
terspersed with tediously detailed descriptions of the Batum Botanical
Gardens and the Crimean wine-making industry. Despite its unevenness,
Mission to Moscow offered a titillating glimpse into State Department
files on an issue of great current interest. It became an immediate best­
seller and met with a highly favorable initial reaction. The Cincinnati
Post called it “tingling history." The New York Herald Tribune said
that the book placed Davies firmly in the tradition of such other Ameri­
can shirtsleeve diplomats as Benjamin Franklin and Will Rogers. The
Houston Post found it “perhaps the most valuable book to be published
on the subject of Russia in the past decade." On the inside front cover of
his personal copy, Franklin D. Roosevelt wrote: “This book will last.” 5
4 Elbridge Durbrow memorandum of conversation with Davies, February 3, 1943,
FR: 1943, III, 504; Joseph E. Davies, Mission to Moscow. Davies’ predictions were
not always accurate. In June, 1942, he wrote: “A surprise Japanese attack upon Russia
seems almost certain sometime this summer.” (“Russia Will Hold This Summer,” S at­
urday Evening Post, CCXIV £June 20, 1942], 89.) Despite this, Arthur Krock could
still write in January, 1943: “Mr. Davies has proved himself a better expert on Rus­
sian military capacity than most of the professional soldiers on whose judgment the
United States Government relied for at least the first year of the Soviet-German war.”
(New York Times, January 14, 1943.)
5 Reviews quoted on book jacket. Mission to Moscow; Ullman, “The Davies Mis-
36 The Soviet Union and W orld Revolution

In this volume and in a series of articles written between 1941 and

1943, Davies gave the American people a new view of the Soviet Union.
At the end of Mission to Moscow, he proclaimed that “the Russia of
Lenin and Trotsky— the Russia of the Bolshevik Revolution—no
longer exists.” Communism had proved itself to be an inefficient system
of production. Through a long and occasionally cruel process, the Soviet
government had evolved into “a system of state socialism operating on
capitalistic principles [which is] steadily and irresistibly swinging to the
right.” The Russians did not seek to revolutionize the world, but rather
to create an egalitarian society in which all men would be governed ac­
cording to ethical principles. Even if some form of communism did sur­
vive inside Russia, Davies argued, it would prove less of a threat to
American institutions than fascism. Communism was based, “after all,
on the same principle of the ‘brotherhood of man* which Jesus
preached.” *6
Stalin himself was no bloody-handed tyrant: “A child would like to
sit in his lap and a dog would sidle up to him.” Davies explained the
unpleasant aspects of the Russian dictator's regime by asserting that
since the mid-1950s the Soviet Union had been preparing for war with
Germany. Stalin had used the purges not to eliminate potential rivals
but to eradicate German spies. Fifth columnists did not exist in Russia,
Davies pointed out, for the simple reason that the Russians had shot
them all. The Nazi-Soviet Pact came only after Britain and France had
demonstrated at Munich that they would not oppose German aggression.
Russia had seized territory from Poland, the Baltic States, and Finland
in 1939 and 1940, but solely for the purpose of gaining additional terri­
tory in which to resist the expected German invasion. Hitler's attack on
the Soviet Union in 1941 had come as no surprise; the Russians had
been getting ready for it for years.7
Victory over Germany, Davies asserted, clearly would depend upon
sion,” p. 220. See also the summary of reviews in B o o k R e v ie w D ig e st , 1942 , pp.
187—88.
6 Davies, M ission to M o sco w , pp. 34, 511, 551—52. See also Davies, “How Russia
Blasted Hitler's Spy Machine," A m erica n M agazin e f CXXXII (December, 1941), 110;
“W hat We Didn’t Know about Russia,” R eader's D ig e st , XL (March, 1942), 46;
“The Soviets and the Post-War,” Life, XIV (March 29, 1943), 49; and a statement
prepared for the American Library Association, January 30, 1944, Davies MSS, Box
14.
7 Davies, M ission to M oscow , p. 357. See also the Davies articles previously died.
T he Soviet Union and W orld Revolution 37

cooperation with Moscow. The fact that the Soviet Union had a commu­
nist government was of no concern: “If I have a man fighting with me,
I am not inquiring about his religion or what church he goes to, or what
party he votes with, while he is helping me to save my wife and chil­
dren and liberties from possible enslavement or destruction. I am going
to give him the benefit of the doubt.” Americans who criticized the So­
viet form of government only helped Hitler: “The way in which they
live and conduct their government . . . is exclusively their own busi­
ness.” Davies felt that there was no reason why the United States and
the USSR could not coexist peacefully after the war. Russia’s chief preoc­
cupation would be security from future attack; its main goal would be
internal industrial development. The “riddle” of how to deal with the
Russians was no riddle at all: the United States should adopt “the sim­
ple approach of assuming that what they say, they mean; that they are
honest in their beliefs, speak the truth and keep their promises.” 8
Subsequent events made Davies’ views seem naive, even foolish, but
they did not appear so at the time. Many prominent Americans allowed
their hopes for cooperation with the USSR to push them into similar
outbursts of wishful thinking. General Douglas MacArthur, for example,
cabled from his besieged headquarters on Corregidor in February, 1942,
that “the hopes of civilization rest on the worthy banners of the coura­
geous Red Army.” Vice-President Henry A. Wallace told a Soviet-Amer-
ican friendship rally late in 1942 that overemphasis on political democ­
racy in the United States had produced extremes of rugged
individualism, states’ rights, and even anarchy, while overemphasis on
economic democracy in the Soviet Union had created an oppressive bu­
reaucracy. Somewhere there had to be “a practical balance” between the
two. Theologian Reinhold Niebuhr, later a vigorous critic of Wallace
and the USSR, took a similar position early in 1943:
Ideally, collaboration between the Communist and the democratic world
might lead to a wholesome exchange of political experience. . . . We have,
on the whole, more liberty and less equality than Russia has. Russia has less
liberty and more equality. Whether democracy should be defined primarily in
terms of liberty or of equality is a source of unending debate.
8 Davies speech to the Community War Fund Rally, Jacksonville, Florida, Novem­
ber 17, 1943, Davies MSS, Box 14; speech to the Governors* Conference, Columbus,
Ohio, June 21, 1943, Vital Speeches, IX (August 1, 1943), 638—40; “The Soviets and
the Post-War,” p. 49.
38 The Soviet Union and W orld Revolution

The Soviet Union was a dictatorship, Niebuhr admitted, but it shared

with the United States a belief in justice “which transcends the interests
of any one particular race or nation.” 9
During the early years of the war, the most popular American period­
icals repeatedly ran articles describing the Soviet Union in uncritical
terms. Life outdid all its competitors with a special issue on Russia in
March, 1943, which proclaimed, among other things, that Lenin was
“perhaps the greatest man of modern times,” that the Russians were
“one hell of a people . . . [who] to a remarkable degree . . . look like
Americans, dress like Americans and think like Americans,” that the
NKVD was “a national police similar to the FBI,” and that Americans
should “not get too excited” about the fact that the Russians lived
“under a system of tight, state-controlled information. . . . If the Soviet
leaders tell us that the control of information was necessary to get the
job done, we can afford to take their word for it.” The normally cautious
New York Times proclaimed in an April, 1944, editorial: “It is not mis­
representing the situation to say that Marxian thinking in Soviet Russia
is out. The capitalist system, better described as the competitive system,
is back.” 10
Even presumably dispassionate scholars succumbed to the new mood.
Sir Bernard Pares, a distinguished British historian of Russia, told an
American radio audience in June, 1943, that “whatever else she is, Rus­
sia is not at the present time Communistic, and no one there pretends
she is.” Professor Ralph Barton Perry of Harvard called attention to “the
steady swerving of Soviet policy away from a strict and narrow Marxian
9MacArthur message quoted in Sherwood, R o o se v e lt a n d H o p k in s , p. 497; Wallace
speech of November 8, 1942, printed in the N e w R epu blic, CVII (November 23,
1942), 667; Niebuhr, "Russia and the West,” N a tio n , CLVI (January 16, 1943), 83;
"Russia as an Ally in W ar and Peace,” U n iv e rsity o f C hicago R o u n d T able, February
21, 1943, p. 5. See also Edward L. and Frederick H. Schapsmeier, P ro p h et in Politics:
H e n ry A . W allace a n d th e W a r Y ears, 1940—1963, p. 34. Paul Willen, “Who ‘Col­
laborated* with Russia?” A n tio c h R e v ie w , XIV (September, 1954), 259—83; Lawrence
S. W ittner, R eb els A g a in st W ar, pp. 115—18; and Richard R. Lingeman, D o n ft Y o u
K n o w There*s a W a r O n? pp. 207—8, 222, 225—27, successfully recapture the eu­
phoric mood with which many Americans viewed Russia during the early stages of the
war.
10 Life, XIV (March 29, 1943), p a ssim ; N e w Y o r k T im es, April 4, 1944. For a
brief survey of American periodical treatment of Russia during the war, see Willen,
"Who ‘Collaborated* with Russia?*’ pp. 262—67.
The Soviet Union and W orld Revolution 39

ideology in the direction of ideas that we can call, in very broad terms,
democratic.” Foster Rhea Dulles, of Ohio State University, published an
elaborate history of Russian-American relations from Catherine the
Great to the Teheran Conference to demonstrate the absence of conflict
between the two nations. Yale historian George Vernadsky, defending
Stalin’s 1939-40 seizures of territory as protective measures against Ger­
many, argued that in wartime “it is often necessary to re-examine our in­
terpretations of the past, making whatever revisions in it seem to be re­
quired by the march of the news.” 11
Wendell Willkie, the Republican Party’s unsuccessful 1940
presidential candidate, expressed as well as anyone the new view of Rus­
sia which the events of World W ar II had produced. Willkie visited the
Soviet Union during a 1942 round-the-world tour arranged with the co­
operation of President Roosevelt. Never a man to cloak his intentions,
the Indiana Republican frankly told his Russian hosts that he had come
to obtain information which would improve the Soviet Union’s image in
the United States. If he saw anything in Russia which might create an
unfavorable impression among Americans, Willkie continued, he would
remain silent about it.12
Willkie described his trip to Russia in One World, a brief, simply
written plea for international cooperation which had sold three million
copies by the time of his death in October, 1944. Acknowledging that
brutal methods had been used to put the Bolsheviks in power, Willkie
11 “Death of the Comintern,“ U n iversity o f Chicago R o u n d T able , June 6, 1943, p.
16; “Russia's Foreign Policy,“ ib id ., September 12, 1943, pp. 2—3; Dulles, T h e R oad
to T eh eran ; Vernadsky, “A Review of Russian Policy,“ Y a le R e v ie w , XXXI (March,
1942), 514, 525—29. For evidence that China scholars demonstrated a similar suscepti­
bility to wishful thinking during the war, see Tang Tsou, A m e rica ’s Failure in C hina,
I, 227—30. Kenneth S. Davis, a journalist, carried the revisionist approach to an ex­
treme by arguing that Stalin had signed the Nazi-Soviet Pact to buy time for war
preparations and, when ready, had deliberately provoked the German attack: “It is en­
tirely possible that when the final history of this great world crisis is written, Stalin
will stand out as the man who saved the civilized world in spite of itself through one
of the most profoundly brilliant pieces of strategy that has ever been employed by a
national leader during an international conflict.“ (“Have We Been Wrong about Sta­
lin?“ C u rren t H isto ry, I [September, 1941], 11.)
12 Undated report by Ambassador William H. Standley on Willkie’s visit, FR:
1 9 4 2 , III, 645—47. See also the accounts in William H. Standley and Arthur A. Age-
ton, A d m ir a l A m b a ssa d o r to Russia, pp. 2 1 4 —11% and Werth, R ussia a t W ar, pp.
481-86.
40 The Soviet Union and W orld Revolution

asserted that the Soviet government had nonetheless significantly im­

proved the life of the Russian people. He did not try to excuse the
Nazi-Soviet Pact, but pointed out that the democracies had little to be
proud of either, having acquiesced in the Munich agreement and the
sale of scrap iron to Japan. Willkie saw little reason to fear the Soviet
Union in the future: “Russia is neither going to eat us or seduce us.” In
an article written shortly after his return to the United States, he said: “I
believe it is possible for Russia and America, perhaps the two most pow­
erful countries in the world, to work together for the economic freedom
and the peace of the world. At least. . . there is nothing I ever wanted
more to believe.” 13
To its credit, the Roosevelt Administration generally avoided attempts
to picture the Soviet Union as a budding democracy or to defend past
actions of Stalin’s regime, preferring instead to justify collaboration with
Russia in terms of military necessity. The one significant exception to
this pattern occurred before American entry into the war, when Presi­
dent Roosevelt became worried that powerful religious organizations
might oppose lend-lease shipments to Russia because of that country’s re­
strictions on freedom of worship. In August, 1941, the White House ar­
ranged on two days’ notice to fly Dr. Daniel A. Poling, president of the
International Christian Endeavor, to London in a bomber to defend aid
to the Soviet Union before a meeting of his organization. On September
3, F.D.R. pointedly advised Pope Pius XII that “leaders of all churches
in the United States . . . should not . . . by their present attitude on
this question directly assist Germany in her present objectives.” 14 Since
the Pope presumably had little influence over American Protestant de­
nominations, it may be assumed that Roosevelt had potential Catholic
opposition chiefly in mind.
“If Moscow could get some publicity back to this country regarding
the freedom of religion [in Russia],” Roosevelt told Soviet Ambassador
Constantine Oumansky on September 11, “it might have a very fine edu-
13 Wendell Willkie, O n e W o rld , pp. 85-86; “We Must Work with Russia/’ N e w
Y o rk T im es M agazin e , January 17, 1943, pp. 5 ff. Sales figures for O ne W orld are
given in Ellsworth Barnard, W e n d e ll W illk ie , p. 412.
14 Long Diary, August 29, 1941, Israel, ed., L on g D ia ry, p. 213; Roosevelt to Pope
Pius XII, September 3, 1941, F D R : P erson al L etters, II, 1204—5. See also Roosevelt
to Myron C. Taylor, September 1, 1941, Roosevelt MSS, PSF: “Italy”; Sherwood, R o o ­
se v e lt a n d H o p k in s, pp. 372—73; and Range, R o o sevelt's W o rld O rd er , pp. 130—31.
The Soviet Union and W orld Revolution 41

cational effect before the next lease-lend bill comes up in Congress.” As

if to jog the Russians’ memory, the President some days later read to a
press conference Article 124 of the largely unimplemented 1936 Soviet
Constitution, which contained guarantees of religious freedom. Roosevelt
regarded this question as one of “outstanding importance . . . from the
standpoint of public opinion in the United States,” Secretary of State
Hull cabled Ambassador Laurence A. Steinhardt in Moscow. “It is de­
sired that you make every endeavor to see that some statement of this
kind is made by the Soviet authorities at the earliest possible moment.”
The Russians dutifully complied on October 4, 1941, publicly proclaim­
ing that freedom of worship was allowed in the Soviet Union so long as
it did not challenge the authority of the state.15
Like Davies and Wallace, Roosevelt saw some possibility that the So­
viet and American systems of government might, through evolution, be­
come similar. The President once explained to Sumner Welles that since
1917 the USSR had advanced “from the original form of Soviet Com­
munism . . . toward a modified form of state socialism,” while at the
same time the United States had progressed “toward the ideal of true po­
litical and social justice”:
He believed that American democracy and Soviet Communism could never
meet. But he told me that he did believe that if one took the figure 100 as
representing the difference between American democracy and Soviet Com­
munism in 1917, with the United States at 100 and the Soviet Union at 0,
American democracy might eventually reach the figure 60 and the Soviet sys­
tem might reach the figure of 40.
As long as this trend toward convergence continued, Roosevelt saw no
reason to regard conflict between the communist and capitalist worlds as
inevitable.16 Unlike many prominent figures during the war, however,
the President refrained from publicly encouraging the belief that time
would erase ideological differences between the two nations.
After Pearl Harbor, the Roosevelt Administration felt little need to
polish the Soviet Union's image in the United States. For most Ameri-
15 Roosevelt-Oumansky conversation, September 11, 1941, FR: 1 9 4 1 , I, 832; Hull
to Steinhardt, October 2, 1941, ib id ., pp. 1000—1; Steinhardt to Hull, October 6,
1941, ib id ., pp. 1002—3. See also Ciechanowski, D efeat in V ictory, pp. 54—55.
16 Welles, W h ere A r e W e H ea d in g ? pp. 37—38. See also a memorandum by Arch­
bishop Francis Spellman of a conversation with Roosevelt on September 3, 1943,
printed in Gannon, T h e C ardinal S p ellm a n S tory, pp. 223—24.
42 The Soviet Union and W orld Revolution

cans, the simple fact that the Russians were fighting Hitler was reason
enough to accept them as allies without worrying too much about ideo­
logical conflicts. As one Georgia newspaper editor put it: *Td be willing
to fight alongside the Devil himself to win this war.” 17 The uncritical
descriptions of Russia which became so prevalent in the mass media dur­
ing World War II reflected the desire of those Americans sophisticated
enough to concern themselves with contradictions in international affairs
to find complete ideological consistency in the war aims of the anti-Axis
coalition. This well-intentioned but misguided effort generated a false
sense of euphoria which led to disillusionment and recrimination later
on, when it became apparent that, aside from common interest in defeat­
ing their enemies, the Soviet Union and the United States had radically
different concepts of what the postwar world should be like.

II
Not all Americans accepted the view that the fires of war had purified
the Stalinist dictatorship. A small but diverse group of observers argued
that the Soviet Union still had a totalitarian form of government, and
doubtless would continue to have one after the war. They acknowledged
Stalin’s apparent abandonment of the goal of world revolution, but re­
fused to exclude the possibility that the Kremlin might still use the
world communist movement to promote its policies. These observers pro­
tested attempts to excuse events of the past decade in Russia as far­
sighted measures to prepare for war with Germany, and anticipated
some postwar conflicts with the Soviet Union. Still, none of them op­
posed the alliance with Stalin against Hitler, arguing only that it should
be based firmly on considerations of national interest, not on fruitless
and occasionally ludicrous efforts to whitewash the Moscow regime.
William Henry Chamberlin, former Moscow correspondent for the
Christian Science Monitor and author of several books and articles on
Russia, typified this point of view. The Stalin who had proved to be such
a “courageous, clear-sighted, astute, tenacious leader of his armies and
his people,” Chamberlin observed, was the same man who had slaugh-
17 S. C. Heindel to Senator Elbert Thomas, June 14, 1943, Thomas MSS, Box 56,
"Davies” file.
The Soviet Union and W orld Revolution 43

tered his own associates and signed the pact with Hitler. The Soviet re­
gime which had inspired millions of Russians to give their lives in its
defense was the same one which had “starved its recalcitrant peasants
and decimated its pre-revolutionary intelligentsia.“ These paradoxes con­
stituted an “enigma,” to be sure, but in Chamberlin’s view hiding them
would gain nothing.
Chamberlin strongly deprecated efforts “to prettify Stalin, whose in­
ternal homicide record is even longer than Hitler’s,” or to falsify the re­
cent history of the USSR. Aid to Russia should be based “squarely on
considerations of American national interests in defeating Hitler.” Such
frankness would not, as many feared, impair relations with Moscow—
the Russians based their alliance with the United States on their own
national interests, not on the attitudes of the American public. Failure
to be frank, however, would inevitably bring disillusionment after the
war. Peaceful postwar association with Russia was possible, Chamberlin
believed, provided the Russians really had given up their ambition to fo­
ment world revolution. American economic assistance in Soviet recon­
struction efforts could serve as an especially useful device to cement good
relations. But such a relationship would not get very far unless Ameri­
cans gave up their peculiar habit of regarding moral excellence as a
prerequisite for wartime collaboration.18
A small group of articulate observers, many of them like Chamberlin
disillusioned former admirers of the Soviet regime, supported his call for
a more realistic attitude toward Russia. Eugene Lyons, Louis Fischer,
Max Eastman, and John Dewey all vigorously criticized wartime efforts
to obscure distasteful facts about the Soviet Union. William C. Bullitt
warned President Roosevelt in 1943 that simply because the Red Army
had fought well, Americans should not leap to the conclusion that Stalin
had embraced the Four Freedoms: “Since this thesis implies a conversion
of Stalin as striking as the conversion of Saul on the road to Damascus,
18 The following articles are representative of Chamberlin’s point of view during the
war: ‘’Russia: An American Problem,” A tla n tic M o n th ly , CLX1X (February, 1942),
148—56; “The Russian Enigma: An Interpretation,” H a rp er’s, CLXXXV (August,
1942), 225—34; “Russia as a Partner in W ar and Peace,” Saturday E ven in g Post,
CCXV (November 14, 1942), 124; “Information, Please, about Russia,” H a rp er’s,
CLXXXVIII (April, 1944), 405-12; “W. L. White and His Critics,” A m erica n M er­
cury, LX (May, 1945), 625-31; “Can We Do Business with Stalin?” ib id ., LXI (Au­
gust, 1945), 194-201.
44 The Soviet Union and W orld Revolution

. . . we have to suspect that this view is the product of the fatal vice in
foreign affairs— the vice of wishful thinking/* State Department ex­
perts on Russia, many of whom had served with Bullitt in Moscow, tried
repeatedly to point out potential sources of conflict with the Soviet
Union, but with little effect. American socialists and pacifists tended to
maintain a critical attitude toward Russia throughout the war.19
A minor triumph of sorts for these critics came in the spring of 1943
when reviewers panned an elaborate Warner Brothers film version of
Mission to Moscow, starring Walter Huston as Joseph Davies. The
movie contained numerous historical inaccuracies: it showed Marshal M.
N. Tukhachevsky admitting his guilt in a Moscow courtroom when in
fact he had been shot without a public trial; it depicted Chinese victims
of Japanese bombs being treated in Soviet hospitals; it implied strongly
that all pre-Pearl Harbor isolationists had been Republicans. These revi­
sions of history, together with the film's emphatic anti-British bias and
reverential treatment of Roosevelt, attracted widespread criticism. James
Agee, writing in the Nation, called the movie “a great, glad two-mil-
lion-dollar bowl of canned borscht, eminently approvable by the Insti­
tute of Good Housekeeping/* John Dewey, who had conducted an exten­
sive investigation of the Moscow purge trials, charged angrily that the
film “may serve the interests of Soviet propaganda. It does not serve the
interests of ‘truth about Russia.* ** Columnist Dorothy Thompson deliv­
ered the sharpest barb: “It has been suggested that this film needs cut­
ting. It does— indefinitely.**20
Davies felt that these criticisms overlooked the film's utility as an at­
tack on isolationism and as a means of establishing confidence in the
19 Eugene Lyons, ‘T he Purification of Stalin,” A m erica n M ercu ry, LIV (January,
1942), 109—16; “Cooperating with Russia,” ibiâ., LVI (May, 1943), 536—45; “The
Progress of Stalin-Worship,” ib id ., LVI (June, 1943), 693—97; Max Eastman, “To
Collaborate Successfully, We Must Face the Facts about Russia,” R ea d er’s D igest,
XLIII (July, 1943), 1—14; Fischer letter to the editor. N a tio n , CLX (June 23, 1945),
706—8; Dewey letter to the editor. N e w Y o rk T im es, January 11, 1942; Ruth Byrns,
“John Dewey on Russia,” C o m m o n w ea l, XXXVI (September 18, 1942), 511—13;
Bullitt to Roosevelt, January 29, 1943, Roosevelt MSS, PSF: “Bullitt”; Kennan, M e m ­
oirs, especially chapters 8—10; Wittner, R ebels A g a in st W ar, pp. 118—19; Willen,
“Who ‘Collaborated* with Russia?*’ pp. 278—79.
2 0 T im e, XLI (May 10 and 17, 1943), 23-24, 19-20; James Agee, A g e e on F ilm ,
p. 37. See also Chamberlin, “Information, Please, about Russia,” pp. 406—7, and
Lyons, “Progress of Stalin-Worship,” pp. 696—97.
The Soviet Union and W orld Revolution 45

Soviet Union as an ally. He later wrote to producer Jack Warner that

“within six weeks after the first showing of ‘Mission to Moscow,* all of
the leaders of the Republican Party . . . made public declarations
against Isolation, which the picture so eloquently preached against.**
When Davies returned to Moscow in May of 1943 on a special mission
for President Roosevelt, he arranged a personal screening of the film for
Joseph Stalin and other members of the Kremlin hierarchy.21 But the
unfavorable reception which American critics gave the film, together
with the bored response of the general public, indicated that efforts to
reconcile United States and Russian war aims in all respects had now
begun to strain the limits of credibility.
Nevertheless, most American observers carefully refrained from criti­
cizing the Soviet Union while the war was on. The one conspicuous ex­
ception was William L. White, son of the famous Kansas editor William
Allen White, who accompanied United States Chamber of Commerce
President Eric Johnston on a trip to the Soviet Union in the summer of
1944. White's account of this trip, published early in 1945, combined
customary praise for the Red Army's fighting abilities with a number of
mildly critical remarks concerning the low Russian standard of living,
the oppressiveness of the state security apparatus, and the inefficiency of
Soviet industrial techniques. White's book provoked a torrent of criti­
cism. Johnston hastily dissociated himself from its conclusions. Several
American correspondents in Moscow published a statement labeling the
book “a highly biased and misleading report.” The New York Times re­
viewer charged that “Mr. White fires no guns for fascism, but he rolls
ammunition for it.** Yet one year later, a far more hostile description of
life in Russia from the Times*s own Russian correspondent, Brooks At­
kinson, attracted generally favorable acclaim culminating in an invita­
tion from President Truman for Atkinson to visit the White House.22
21 Draft of letter from Davies to Rex Stout, March 21, 1944, Davies MSS, Box 14;
Davies to Warner, August 31, 1945, ib id .. Box 19; Werth, Russia a t W ar, p. 673; C.
L. Sulzberger, A L o n g R o w o f C andles , p. 213.
22 William L. White, R e p o rt on th e Russians. A serialization of W hite’s book
which appeared in the R eader's D ig est, XLV (December, 1944), 101-22, and XLVI
(January, 1945), 106—28, did much to attract attention to it. On the reception of
W hite’s book, see T im e, XLV (March 26, 1945), 61-62; Chamberlin, “W. L. White
and His Critics,” pp. 625—31; and White, ‘‘Report on the Critics,” Saturday R e v ie w ,
XXIX (October 6, 1946), 15—17. Atkinson’s account appeared in the N e w Y o rk
46 The Soviet Union and W orld Revolution

It is difficult to say what effect these conflicting views of Russia had

on public opinion as a whole. Wartime polls showed that roughly one
out of five Americans firmly distrusted the Soviet Union during the war
and saw little chance of good relations in the future. A somewhat larger
group— approximately 35 percent of the population— anticipated
no difficulties in arranging postwar cooperation with the USSR. The re­
maining 45 percent oscillated between optimism and pessimism accord­
ing to the course of events, or expressed no opinion. But the over-all
level of interest in foreign affairs during the 1940s remained surprisingly
low. Estimates indicate that 30 percent of American voters paid no at­
tention whatever to international developments. Forty-five percent of the
electorate was aware of important events, but incapable of discussing
them intelligently. Only about one out of four American adults consist­
ently demonstrated any thorough knowledge of foreign affairs.*23
Significantly, the minority of Americans who did keep up with inter­
national developments tended to rate possibilities of postwar cooperation
with the Soviet Union higher than did poorly informed citizens. College
graduates showed a greater willingness to trust Russia than did Ameri­
cans with high school or grade school educations. Businessmen, profes­
sional leaders, and white-collar workers exhibited less suspicion of Soviet
intentions than did low income groups.24 The existence of a favorable
attitude toward the USSR among well-educated and presumably pros­
perous Americans would seem to indicate that critics of Russia had little
impact in counteracting the flood of sympathetic and often inaccurate in­
formation about the Soviet Union which appeared in the mass media
during the war.
Times on July 7—9, 1946, and as “Russia, 1946," in Life, XXI (July 22, 1946),
85—94. See also the New York Times, July 13, 1946, for Atkinson’s reception at the
White House.
23 Gabriel A. Almond, American People and Foreign Policy, p. 53; Martin Kries-
berg, “Dark Areas of Ignorance," in Lester Markel, ed.. Public Opinion and Foreign
Policy, pp. 51—52. Generalizations on public attitudes toward the Soviet Union are
based on responses to the question, asked repeatedly in wartime opinion polls: “Do
you think Russia can be trusted to cooperate with us after the war?” Data on re­
sponses are given in Hadley Cantril and Mildred Strunk, eds., Public Opinion,
1935—1946, pp. 370—71; and are presented in graph form in Hadley Cantril, “Opin­
ion Trends in World W ar II," Public Opinion Quarterly, X II (Spring, 1948), 38.
24 Cantril and Strunk, eds., Public Opinion, p. 371; Walsh, “What the American
People Think of Russia," p. 520; Willen, “Who ‘Collaborated’ with Russia?" p. 281;
Jerome Bruner, Mandate from the People, p. 113.
The Soviet Union and W orld Revolution 47

III
One key determinant of postwar relations between Russia and the West
would be the extent to which traditional communist ideology still influ­
enced the foreign policy of the USSR. If, as appeared likely to many ob­
servers during the war, the Kremlin had abandoned its old goal of world
revolution, then chances for peaceful Soviet-American coexistence after
Germany's defeat would be good. If, on the other hand, the Soviets con­
tinued to nurse revolutionary ambitions, lasting peace would be difficult
to achieve. President Roosevelt's entire “grand design'' for postwar coop­
eration with the Soviet Union rested on the assumption that Moscow
had stopped trying to impose communism on the rest of the world.25
The Soviet Union's main instrument for fomenting world revolution
in the past had been the Communist International, or Comintern, which
it had established in 1919. This organization had not been conspicuously
successful— indeed communism failed to take root permanently any­
where outside the Soviet Union during the interwar period. But as long
as the Comintern remained in existence it provided evidence of the
Kremlin's symbolic, if not actual, espousal of world revolution. Loy Hen­
derson, assistant chief of the State Department's Division of European
Affairs, warned Undersecretary of State Sumner Welles in April of 1942
that although little had been heard of the Comintern lately, “we have
no information which would cause us to believe that it is not continuing
quietly to function with headquarters in the Soviet Union." Elbridge
Durbrow, another Division of European Affairs official, told Joseph Da­
vies early in 1943 that any postwar agreements with the Soviet Union
“would have to include a very concrete and definite understanding that
the activities of the Comintern would have to be liquidated.” Nothing
would do more to improve relations between Russia and the rest of the
world, Cordell Hull observed in May, than the final and definite prohibi­
tion of further Comintern activities.26
Under these circumstances, news from Moscow on May 22, 1943, that
25 On this point, see Welles, Where Are We Heading? pp. 37—38.
26 Henderson to Welles, April 9, 1942, FR: 1942, III, 436; Durbrow memorandum
of conversation with Davies, February 3, 1943, FR: 1943, III, 503-4; Hull memoran­
dum of conversation with Eduard Benes, May 18, 1943, ibid., pp. 529—30.
48 The Soviet Union and W orld Revolution

the Comintern had been dissolved made a great impression in the

United States. Admiral William H. Standley, at that time American am­
bassador in the Soviet Union, regarded this development as an event of
major importance which symbolized Russia's confidence in its allies.
Hull told the press that cessation of Comintern activities would contrib­
ute greatly to wartime and postwar cooperation. Eric Johnston found the
news to be the most encouraging since the battle of Stalingrad, while
Wendell Willkie termed the step “a very wise move” which would do
much to dissipate misunderstandings among the Allies. Assistant Secre­
tary of State Breckinridge Long noted in his diary that dissolution of the
Comintern would destroy one of Germany’s main propaganda assets, Eu­
rope’s fear of communization should the Russians win the war. Repre­
sentative Martin Dies, chairman of the House Committee to Investigate
Un-American Activities and long one of the most avid “Red-baiters” in
Congress, went so far as to speculate that abolition of the Comintern
might even make it possible to do away with his own committee.27
Joseph E. Davies, who was in Moscow when the abolition of the
Comintern was announced, reported to President Roosevelt that the Rus­
sians appeared to be sincere in abandoning interference in the internal
affairs of other countries. In an article written for the United Press later
that summer, Davies explained that the Russians now clearly intended
“to cooperate with, and not to stir up trouble for, their neighbors, with
whom they are pledged to collaborate to win the war and the peace.” By
abolishing the Comintern, Davies said, Stalin had dealt the death blow
to Trotsky’s program of violent world revolution. Trotsky’s widow, liv­
ing in exile in Mexico, lent credence to Davies’ conclusion when she
proclaimed bitterly that dissolution of the Comintern constituted the
final betrayal of the Bolshevik Revolution.28
Davies was hardly an objective observer but, as usual, he was not
alone in his views. Many people who in later years would be far less
sympathetic to the Soviet Union than Davies accepted his explanation of
the Comintern’s abolition. Senator Tom Connally of Texas, chairman of
27 Standley to Hull, May 25, 1943, FR: 1943, III, 534-35; Hull press conference of
May 24, 1943, quoted ibid,, pp. 535—36; New York Times, May 23, 1943; Long
Diary, May 23, 1943, Israel, ed.. Long Diary, p. 314; Dies comment in the New York
Times, May 23, 1943.
28 Davies to Roosevelt, May 29, 1943, Roosevelt MSS, PSF 18: “Russia"; New
York Times, May 24 and August 1, 1943.
The Soviet Union and W orld Revolution 49

the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, commented that "Russians for

years have been changing their economy and approaching the abandon­
ment of communism, and the whole Western world will be gratified at
the happy climax of their efforts.” Despite the fact that he had little re­
gard for Davies, Ambassador Standley agreed that Stalin had acted sin­
cerely. From now on, Standley thought, the Russians would try to con­
vert the world to communism not through subversive activities but
simply by setting a good example. General Patrick J. Hurley, acting as a
personal representative of President Roosevelt, told Chiang Kai-shek in
November, 1943, that Stalin had stopped supporting communist activi­
ties outside of the Soviet Union. The Russian dictator, Hurley main­
tained, now realized that communism could succeed inside Russia with­
out being forced on the rest of the world. George Messersmith, the
influential American ambassador in Mexico, believed that communism
in the conventional sense no longer existed within the Soviet Union, and
that “the rabid communists are all found outside Russia today.” Repre­
sentative John W. McCormack of Massachusetts told the House of Rep­
resentatives succinctly: "Dissolution of the Communist International
. . . means the renunciation of world revolution.” 29
Some observers did acknowledge the possibility that communism
might take root in Europe on its own, without assistance from the Soviet
Union. The economic and social devastation of war had undermined the
old order, and communists were rapidly winning popularity throughout
Europe by leading resistance movements against the Germans. John
Scott, Time's correspondent in Stockholm, warned Secretary of State
Hull late in 1943 that public opinion in the occupied countries was
swinging away from distant governments-in-exile toward communist
and other resistance groups. Vera Micheles Dean, of the Foreign Policy
Association, wrote that Europe was ripe for revolution, but that such up-
29 N e w Y o r k T im es,May 23, 1943; Harold H. Burton Diary, October 19, 1943,
Burton MSS, Box 138; Hurley to Roosevelt, November 20, 1943, FR: T ehran, pp.
102—3; Messersmith to Hull, January 4, 1944, Hull MSS, Box 53, Folder 165; C on ­
gressional R ecord, June 6, 1943, p. A2778. For Standley’s opinion of Davies see Stand-
ley and Ageton, A d m ir a l A m b assador to Russia, chapter 22. Standley had changed
his view of the dissolution of the Comintern by 1955: “The Comintern never was dis­
solved; it just went underground for the duration of the war. The dissolution was re­
ported as a measure to help allay the prejudice and suspicion of the American peo­
ple.“ (Ib id ., p. 373.)
50 The Soviet Union and W orld Revolution

heavals as might occur would spring primarily “from maladjustments

within the countries where they take place.” Walter Duranty, a former
New York Times correspondent in Moscow, told a radio audience early
in 1943: “We may have anarchy in Europe. We may have all sorts of
dreadful Red and Black movements, of which I am afraid. But my im­
pression and belief is that the Russians will not foster or push such
movements. On the contrary, they would rather tend to stem them.” 30
But the prospect of indigenous communist regimes in Europe aroused
surprisingly little concern in the United States during the war. Believing
as they did in the concept of self-determination, Americans felt that they
could not consistently demand for Europeans the right to choose demo­
cratic forms of government without at the same time allowing those
who wanted it to embrace communism. John McCormack told his col­
leagues in the House of Representatives:
Most of us in opposing national socialism or communism, recognize the right
of the people of other nations to have any kind of a government they want
that does not violate the international law of decency.
It was the advocacy by Soviet Russia of world revolution, violating the
laws of nations,. . . that properly aroused resentment and opposition.
“We don't care whether Russia is Communist at home,” the Washington
Times-Herdd editorialized, “but we didn't like Russia's efforts to pro­
mote Communist revolutions here.” 31
30 Scott to Hull, December 23, 1943, Hull MSS, Box 53, Folder 165; Dean, “The
U.S.S.R. and Post-War Europe,” pp. 132—33, 138; “Russia as an Ally in War and
Peace,” U n iversity o f C hicago R o u n d T able, February 21, 1943, p. 12. On postwar Eu­
rope’s susceptibility to revolution see also Demaree Bess, “Will Europe Go Commu­
nist after the War?” Saturday E ven in g Post, CCXVI (January 22, 1944), 15; Heinz
H. F. Eulau, “The New Soviet Nationalism,” A n n als o f th e A m erica n A c a d em y o f P o­
litic a l a n d Social Science, CCXXX1I (March, 1944), 28; and William H. Chamberlin,
“Russia and Europe, 1918—1944,” R ussian R e v ie w , IV (Autumn, 1944), 9.
3 1 C on gression al R eco rd , June 3, 1943, p. A2778; W a sh in g to n T im e s -H e r d d edi­
torial, date not given, reprinted ib id ., November 15, 1943, p. A4861. See also Bruner,
M an d a te fr o m th e P eo p le, p. 106. Gabriel Kolko, T h e P olitics o f W ar, argues that of­
ficials of the United States government during World W ar II attributed the rise of the
“Left” in Europe to the growing influence of the Soviet Union, and deliberately set
out to counteract it. But Kolko cites as his main evidence to support this thesis the
efforts of Anglo-American military authorities to disarm resistance groups in liberated
countries, a development which can more logically be accounted for in terms of the
need for secure communications behind the advancing armies and requirements for re­
storing civilian government. Kolko’s interpretation ignores Roosevelt’s hopes for post-
The Soviet Union and W orld Revolution 51

In contrast to the general trend of opinion in the United States, State

Department experts refused to attach much significance to the abolition
of the Comintern. The Division of Far Eastern Affairs noted in August,
1943, that the Soviet Union still had “as one of its paramount political
objectives the creation of well disposed and ideologically sympathetic
governments in nearby areas.” Ambassador W. Averell Harriman wrote
President Roosevelt from Moscow in November that although the Rus­
sians had recently shown little interest in exporting communism, they
might still do so “if it proves to be the only way they can get the kind of
relationships they demand from their western border states.” Elbridge
Durbrow of the Division of Eastern European Affairs argued early in
1944 that communist parties outside the Soviet Union would continue
to follow Moscow's orders, even though no formal centralized agency ex­
isted to guide them. Indeed, dissolution of the Comintern might actually
strengthen the world communist movement by giving individual party
organizations a semblance of independence, thus enabling them to at­
tract greater popular support in their respective countries. Harriman
agreed. “Communist form of governments [sic] is not a present objec­
tive of the Soviets,” he wrote in April, 1944, “although fall opportunity
for political expression of the Communist parties [does] appear [to be]
a fixed objective.” *32
Communist activities in Latin America caused particular concern to
State Department officials. Charles E. Bohlen noted in May of 1943 that
Mexico was the center for Comintern operations in the Western hemi­
sphere, and that the appointment of the Soviet ambassador to that coun­
try was “more than merely a routine diplomatic assignment.” Harriman
early in 1944 called Hull’s attention to the fact that the Soviets main­
tained unusually large diplomatic staffs in several Latin American coun­
war cooperation with the Soviet Union, and focuses too narrowly on economic factors
as the primary domestic influence on American diplomacy. The tendency to ascribe
revolutionary developments .to the machinations of Moscow did become a prominent
characteristic of United States foreign policy, but not until at least 1946.
32 Division of Far Eastern Affairs memorandum, August 19, 1943, FR: Washington
and Quebec, pp. 627—29; Harriman to Roosevelt, November 4, 1943, FR: Tehran, p.
154; Durbrow memorandum, “Certain Aspects of Present Soviet Policy,” February 3,
1944, FR: 1944, IV, 813—19; Harriman to Hull, April 20, 1944, ibid., p. 863. See
also an unsigned memorandum prepared in the Division of European Affairs, “Current
Problems in Relations with the Soviet Union,” March 24, 1944, ibid., pp. 839—42.
52 The Soviet Union and W orld Revolution

tries, although there was no evidence that these diplomats were engag­
ing in subversive activities. Marion Parks, of the department’s Office of
American Republic Affairs, observed in March of 1944 that the Russians
had done everything possible to increase their influence in Latin Amer­
ica. Communist movements there were proceeding along much the same
lines as they had prior to dissolution of the Comintern, and “connections
are generally believed to exist between the [Soviet diplomatic] missions
and local Communist groups.” 33
But the State Department did not regard continued communist activ­
ity as evidence that the Soviet Union still sought world revolution.
George F. Kennan, counselor at the American Embassy in Moscow,
wrote in the summer of 1944 that “it is a matter of indifference to Mos­
cow whether a given area is ‘communistic’ or not. All things being
equal, Moscow might prefer to see it communized, although even that is
debatable. But the main thing is that it should be amenable to Moscow
influence, and if possible to Moscow authority.” Elbridge Durbrow
pointed out that “the Comintern has been and still is used primarily as
an instrument of Soviet foreign policy.” The Russians might well try to
take advantage of the revolutionary conditions which were sure to exist
in Europe after the war, but if they did, it would be for reasons of na­
tional interest, not because of a determination to impose communism on
the rest of the world.34
Outside of official circles, the hierarchy of the Catholic Church consti­
tuted the most vocal center of skepticism regarding Soviet ideological in­
tentions. A bitter heritage of distrust had long separated the Vatican
from the Kremlin. The Church’s traditional hostility toward commu­
nism, the Soviet Union’s persecution of religion, and the violent confron­
tation between Catholics and communists during the Spanish Civil W ar
all had contributed to the mutual hostility. The outbreak of World War
r

II had done nothing to allèviate this bitterness, and as it became more

and more likely that heavily-Catholic Poland would fall within a Soviet
33 Bohlen memorandum of May 19, 1943, FR: 1943, III, 530—31; Harriman to
Hull, January 18, 1944, FR: 1944, IV, 806—7; Parks memorandum on “Activities of
Soviet Diplomatic Representatives in the Other American Republics,“ March 28,1944,
ibid., pp. 843—54.
34 Kennan memorandum, “Russia— Seven Years Later,“ September, 1944, FR:
1944, IV, 908—9; Durbrow memorandum, “Certain Aspects of Present Soviet Policy,“
February 3, 1944, ibid., p. 817.
The Soviet Union and W orld Revolution 53

sphere of influence, relations between Stalin and the Pope worsened.

As early as February, 1942, the Catholic journal America had warned
its readers that the effort to convince Americans that they need not fear
communism would neither strengthen national morale nor further war
aims, “since it is based upon a lie.“ Catholic World noted in the spring
of 1943 that admiration for Soviet military achievements threatened to
obscure the fact that Stalin still wanted world revolution. Russia’s alli­
ance with the West was merely a marriage of convenience; when Ger­
many was defeated Stalin would resume his attempts to communize Eu­
rope.35
Dissolution of the Comintern failed to alter the conviction of several
prominent Catholic leaders that communism posed as great a threat as
fascism. Monsignor Fulton J. Sheen persistently advocated this point of
view: “Communism is the Asiatic form of fascism and fascism is the Eu­
ropean form of communism. There is no essential difference in ideology
between the Nazis, the Fascists, and the Communists; all absorb the in­
dividual into the collectivity. There is as little difference between com­
munism and fascism as there is between burglary and larceny.” Early in
1944 Sheen warned a State Department official that while Russia might
be willing to help the Allies eradicate Nazi Germany, this did not mean
that the Kremlin would cooperate in other areas. “Irreligious atheism,”
Sheen observed, “is not only the internal policy of Soviet Russia, but is
also to be its external policy in a Soviet Europe.” Father James Gillis,
the editor of Catholic World, described the danger of Russian commu­
nism in similar terms for his readers in the fall of 1944:
The greatest potential menace to permanent peace is Soviet Russia. Fascism
is not and never was as dangerous as Communism. Naziism, the most viru­
lent form of Fascism, is about to be destroyed. Another evil, imperialism,
British, French, Dutch, will be amended and gradually abolished. But Fas­
cism, Naziism, Imperialism combined—if that could be—would not be
so serious a threat to peace and to international cooperation as Russian Com­
munism.
Three Catholic archbishops warned President Roosevelt in December
that Stalin had been trained “in the school of revolutionaries who plot­
ted the overthrow of all the governments of the world and the establish-
35 "Not Untimely," America, LXVI (February 7, 1942), 490; C. P. Thomas, "Pre­
lude to Invasion," Catholic World, CLVII (May, 1943), 149-54.
54 The Soviet Union and W orld Revolution

ment of a world domination of communism.” The Russian leader in­

stinctively distrusted noncommunist nations and was “seeking to
establish the domination of the Soviet Union over other nations by pro­
moting, subsidizing, and directing Communistic minority groups in other
countries.” 36
Catholic critics of communism found a conspicuous spokesman in
William C. Bullitt, the former American ambassador to the Soviet
Union. Bullitt had gone to Moscow in 1933 an enthusiastic supporter of
the Moscow regime, but in one of the abrupt shifts from admiration to
hatred which characterized his life, he soon became bitterly anti-Soviet.
In August of 1943 he had told Roosevelt: “Hitler's aim was to spread
the power of the Nazis to the ends of the earth. Stalin's aim is to spread
the power of the communists to the ends of the earth. Stalin, like Hitler,
will not stop. He can only be stopped.” 37 Bullitt's influence with the
President waned as cooperation with Russia increased, however, and the
summer of 1944 found him without an official position, free to express
publicly his personal views.
Bullitt did so with customary vigor in a widely read article which ap­
peared in Life in September. Entitled “The World from Rome,” it pur­
ported to give the views of the hierarchy of the Catholic Church, al­
though Bullitt employed only the euphemism “Romans” throughout.
The “Romans,” Bullitt said, viewed the American decision to aid Stalin
without first securing his promise not to dominate postwar Eastern Eu-
36 February 2, 1944, reprinted in the C ongressional R ec­
W a sh in g to n T im es-H era ld ,
o rd , February 2, 1944, p. A547; memorandum by unidentified State Department offi­
cial of conversation with Sheen, February 18, 1944, Department of State Records,
861.404/2-1844 EG; James M. Gillis, ‘'Getting Wise to Russia/’ C ath olic W o rld ,
CLX (October, 1944), 1—6; Archbishops Edward Mooney, A. Stritch, and Francis
Spellman to Roosevelt, December 13, 1944, Department of State Records, 700.0011
PEACE/12-1344 Ai. Les K. Adler and Thomas G. Paterson, “Red Fascism: The
Merger of Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia in the American Image of Totalitarianism,
1930 s—1950’s,” A m erica n H isto rica l R e v ie w , LXXV (April, 1970), 1046—64. deals
with the tendency to equate communism with fascism both before and after World
War II, but neglects Catholic efforts to do this during the war.
37 Bullitt to Roosevelt, August 10, 1943, Roosevelt MSS, PSF: “Bullitt.” Bullitt’s
persistent Russophobia had alienated the President by this time, as had the former am­
bassador’s recent smear campaign against Sumner Welles, which had brought about
the Undersecretary of State’s forced resignation. On this matter, see Acheson, Present a t
th e C reation , p. 46; Israel, ed.. L on g D ia ry, pp. 324—25; and Burns, R oosevelt: T h e
S o ld ier o f F reedom , p. 350. For insight into Bullitt’s personality, see Beatrice Farns­
worth, W illia m C. B u llitt a n d th e S o v ie t U n ion , p a ssim ; and Kennan, M em oirs, pp.
79-81.
The Soviet Union and W orld Revolution 55

rope as “one of the biggest mistakes of the war.” Events in Poland had
already made the Atlantic Charter “a dead letter, a mere expression of a
pious hope that will never seriously be supported by either the United
States or Great Britain.” Moscow’s call for “friendly democratic govern­
ments” along its borders was merely a ploy to allow communist ele­
ments “to organize themselves strongly enough to destroy all democratic
liberties and install a soviet totalitarian regime.” Alarmingly apocalyptic
in tone, the article warned: “Rome again sees approaching from the East
a wave of conquerors.. . . Will the result of this war be the subjugation
of Europe by Moscow?” The “Romans” and Bullitt clearly feared such a
development.38
“The World from Rome” stirred up a hornet’s nest of criticism. The
exiled Italian scholar Gaetano Salvemini accused Bullitt of using the
label “Romans” to project his own and the Catholic Church’s point of
view. Life's editors observed lamely that the Russophobic tone of Bul­
litt’s writing should not have surprised anyone, since everyone already
knew that Bullitt was a Russophobe. One of Life's readers commented
tartly that the Church hierarchy could more effectively halt the spread
of communism by raising the standard of living of its own communi­
cants than by talking to people like Bullitt.39
There were others who doubted the Kremlin’s sincerity in abolishing
the Comintern. Former Russian correspondent Louis Fischer told a radio
audience that “Stalin has only torn up a label. He loses nothing. He
must be laughing at us for being so naive as to celebrate the death of a
name.” Max Eastman, another prominent critic of the Stalinist regime,
asked: “Why should we expea a sudden end to the World Communist
conspiracy just because the bosses of the Comintern have ostentatiously
burned their letterheads?” Alexander Barmine and V iaor A. Krav­
chenko, two former Soviet officials who had defeaed to the United
States, warned loudly of Russian duplicity. A dwindling band of isola­
tionists like Representative Hamilton Fish of New York continued to
refer ominously to “the bloody hand of Communism.” 40
38 Life, XVII (September 4, 1944), 94-109.
39 Gaetano Salvemini, “Mr. Bullitt’s Romans,” New Republic, CXI (October 2,
1944), 423—26; letters to the editor column, Life, XVII (September 25, 1944), 2—10.
For a survey of public reaction to Bullitt’s article, see Department of State, “Fort­
nightly Survey of American Opinion,” No. 11, September 19, 1944.
40 “W ill Russia’s Abolition of the Comintern Help W in the Peace?” Town Meeting
o f the Air, May 27, 1943, pp. 8—9; Eastman, “To Collaborate Successfully, We Must
56 The Soviet Union and W orld Revolution

But the skepticism of the State Department, the Catholic hierarchy,

and others about dissolution of the Comintern did not extend to the gen­
eral public. Opinion polls demonstrated that as the war progressed, more
and more Americans came to believe that the Russians really had aban­
doned their plans for world revolution. A poll taken in August of 1944
showed that only 20 percent of a national sample expected Russia to try
to spread communism to Europe after the war. Another poll sent to
President Roosevelt in November concluded that a majority of the popu­
lation accepted as sincere the Soviet government’s contention that its
main objective was to build up a strong socialist state, not to spread
communism. Most Americans at this time would have agreed with Rich­
ard Lauterbach, former head of the Time-Life Russian bureau, who ob­
served that “more people talk about world revolution in New York than
they do in Moscow.” 41

IV
Antipathy for communism remained strong within the United States
throughout the war, but Americans directed this hostility against their
own communists, not Russian ones. Harry Hopkins explained to Molo­
tov in 1942 that the American Communist Party was made up of “dis­
gruntled, frustrated, ineffectual, and vociferous people— including a
comparatively high proportion of distinctly unsympathetic Jews.” Two
years later, during a trip to the Soviet Union, Eric Johnston undertook
to explain to the Russians why communists were so unpopular in the
United States: “Our American Communists . . . lack originality and
realism. They still follow and imitate what they think is your current
policy. If you take pepper they sneeze. If you have indigestion, they
belch. They annoy our trade unions much more than they annoy our
Face the Facts about Russia/’ p. 11; Barmine, “The New Communist Conspiracy,”
ib id ., XLV (October, 1944), 27-33; N e w Y o rk T im es, April 4, 1944; T im e, XLV
(January 1, 1945), 14.
41 Almond, A m erica n P eople a n d F oreign P olicy, pp. 93—94; Bruner, M an date fro m
th e P eople, p. 113; Report on “Public Understanding of Russian Intentions, Policies,
Performances,” prepared for Roosevelt by Hadley Cantril, November 10, 1944, Roose­
velt MSS, OF 857, Box 3; N e w Y o rk T im es, October 21, 1944. See also Walsh,
“What the American People Think of Russia,” p. 514.
The Soviet Union and W orld Revolution 57

employers.” John L. Lewis early in 1944 indignantly berated American

communists for trying to “hang on to the coattails of the Red Army” by
equating friendship for Russia with sympathy for communism. It was an
“outrageous contention” to assert that the United States could not fight
side by side with Russia while simultaneously combating communists at
home. Congressman John Rankin of Mississippi went so far as to blame
the Detroit race riot of 1943 on American communists, but noted that
in the Soviet Union communism was so unpopular that the Russians
were running it out of the country.42
Such slanders hurt Earl Browder, the unlikely head of the Communist
Party of the United States, who was once described as looking more like
a lyric poet than a revolutionary. Too many people, he complained,
thought that “now that the Soviet Union is our ally . . . the Commu­
nists of the Soviet Union are okey, since they are indispensable, but that
does not mean that we need tolerate them in the United States.” Follow­
ing the Teheran Conference, the American Communist Party made
every effort to fit itself into the domestic political establishment. Brow­
der at one point proclaimed that “if J. P. Morgan supports this coalition
[of Russia and the United States} and goes down the line for it, I as a
Communist am prepared to clasp his hand.” When told on another occa­
sion that he sounded like a member of the National Association of Man­
ufacturers, Browder replied: “That’s fine. I'm awfully glad to hear that.”
In May of 1944 the Communist Party of the United States dissolved it­
self, became the “nonpartisan” Communist Political Association, and
proclaimed its support of Franklin D. Roosevelt for President.43
This latest gyration of the American Communist Party failed to ap­
pease its critics. The expansion of federal government power during the
New Deal and World War II had convinced some Americans that a
42 Hopkins-Molotov conversation, May 29, 1942, FR: 1942, III, 570—71; Johnston
speech of June 3, 1944, FR: 1944, IV, 967n; New York Times, February 29, 1944;
Congressional Record, July 1, 1943, p. A3371. Congressman Rankin attributed much
of the racial tension in the United States to the activities of communists: “Many inno­
cent, unprotected white girls . . . have been raped and murdered by vicious Negroes,
who have been encouraged by those alien-minded Communists to commit such
crimes.’* {Ibid,)
43 “Earl Browder,” Current Biography, 1944, pp. 69—73; Browder debate with
George Sokolsky, March 21, 1943, on “Is Communism a Menace?” New Masses,
April 6, 1943, p. 16; Irwin Ross, “It’s Tough to Be a Communist,” Harper's, CXCII
(June, 1946), 532.
58 The Soviet Union and W orld Revolution

form of collectivism, possibly even communism, might develop indige­

nously in the United States. As the presidential election of 1944 ap­
proached, Republican orators found it convenient to play on these fears
as a means of pillorying the Roosevelt Administration. The Communist
Political Association’s endorsement of Roosevelt made it easier for Re­
publicans to link communism with the New Deal. Highly effective cam­
paigning for the Democrats by Sidney Hillman’s Political Action Com­
mittee of the Congress of Industrial Organizations worried many
Republicans, causing them to try to discredit that organization by label­
ing it communist.44 Thus communism became an issue during the 1944
presidential campaign but not, oddly enough, because of the activities of
the Comintern.
Republicans went to great lengths to make it clear that opposition to
domestic communism did not imply disrespect for the Soviet Union.
Fundamental differences existed between Russian and American eco­
nomic and social systems, Thomas E. Dewey said in April, 1944, but
these dissimilarities in no way made friction between the two countries
inevitable. Former President Herbert Hoover assured the Republican
National Convention in June that Russia was no longer truly commu­
nist: “The Communist Internationalism of Russia has been driven out by
the nationalist aspiration to free Mother Russia and expand the
empire.” 45
During the campaign the Republican vice-presidential candidate,
John W. Bricker, repeated with depressing monotony the charge that
communists wanted Roosevelt to win the election. Bricker accused Roo­
sevelt of having pardoned Earl Browder from prison, where he had been
sent for falsifying his passport, in order to win communist support for a
fourth term. The President depended for his reelection, Bricker asserted,
44 Leon Friedman, “Election of 1944,“ in Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., ed.. H istory o f
A m e rica n P resid en tia l E lection s, 1 7 8 9 —1 9 6 8 , IV, 301$, 3033—35. One of the most
vivid denunciations of the Political Action Committee came from a Democrat, Repre­
sentative Philip J. Philbin of Massachusetts, who charged that the organization was
“inspired by internal Communists, revolutionary Socialists, Syndicalists and an assorted
variety of social reform crackpots, fellow travellers, brave-new-world, starry-eyed dream­
ers, dangerous un-American alien radicals, and other diverse subversive elements.“
( C on gressional R ecord, June 20, 1944, p. A3179.)
45 Dewey speech of April 28, 1944, reprinted in the C on gression al R ecord, 1944
appendix, pp. A2022—A2023; Hoover speech of June 27, 1944, reprinted ibid., pp.
A342$-A3428.
The Soviet Union and W orld Revolution 59

on big city bosses and “Communist and radical elements.” Merging his
condemnations of the Communist Party and the Political Action Com­
mittee, Bricker charged in Dallas late in October that “the great Demo­
cratic party has become the Hillman-Browder communistic party with
Franklin Roosevelt at its front.” Representative Clare Boothe Luce of
Connecticut made the same accusation, asserting that on orders of Mos­
cow the American Communist Party “has gone underground, after the
fashion of termites, into the Democratic party.” 46
Dewey himself used the communist issue more cautiously than Bricker
and other Republicans. Speaking in Charleston, West Virginia, in Octo­
ber, he maintained that communists were supporting Roosevelt because
the New Deal was moving toward state ownership of the nation’s pro­
ductive facilities. Under these circumstances, “government would tell
each of us where we could work, at what, and for how much.” This
might be either communism or fascism, but whatever it was Dewey was
against it. The Republican candidate climaxed his use of the communist
issue with a speech in heavily-Catholic Boston on November 1:
Naziism and fascism are being crushed out in the world. But the totalitarian
idea is very much alive and we must not slip to its other form, communism.
. . . Today that pagan philosophy is sweeping through much of the world.
As we look abroad we see that in country after country its advocates are
making a bid for power. We would be fools not to look for that same danger
here. And we haven’t far to look.
After uttering this dire warning, however, Dewey took care to ensure
that his remarks would not reflect on the Soviet Union. New Dealers, he
charged, were trying to convince the American people that they
must love communism or offend our fighting ally, Russia. Not even the gulli­
ble believe that. In Russia, a Communist is a man who supports his govern­
ment. In America, a Communist is a man who supports the fourth term so
that our form of government may more easily be changed.
The question of communism in the United States, Dewey concluded, had
nothing whatsoever to do with the Soviet Union.47
Republican use of the communist issue caused some concern within
the Democratic camp. In a radio address early in October, Roosevelt ex-
46 New York Times, September 21, 26, October 17, 26, 1944.
47 Ibid,, October 8, November 2, 1944.
60 The Soviet Union and W orld Revolution

plicitly rejected the support of the American communists: “I have never

sought and I do not welcome the support of any person or group com­
mitted to communism or fascism or any other foreign ideology which
would undermine the American system of government or the American
system of free competitive enterprise and private property.” At the same
time Roosevelt, like Dewey, felt called upon to stress that anticommu­
nism did not mean anti-Sovietism. Repudiation of American communists
should not “interfere with the firm and friendly relationship which this
nation has in this war . . . with the people of the Soviet Union. The
kind of economy that suits the Russian people . . . is their own affair.” 48
Roosevelt’s speech failed to quiet Democratic anxieties. A Chicago
party worker assured Harry Hopkins that the American public was
deeply concerned about communism: “This current talk about Browder
and Hillman, socialization of industry, business, education, etc., is some­
thing that people are talking about.” Oscar Cox, one of Hopkins* chief
assistants, drafted a speech for Foreign Economic Administrator Leo T.
Crowley which asserted that
President Roosevelt and the Administration are not only strongly opposed to
the doctrines of communism for the United States, but by their progressive
leadership they have prevented communism from getting a foothold and be­
coming a real power in this country—a foothold and a real power which
communism might well have gotten if the breadlines and apple-selling of
Hooverism had continued.
Senator Robert F. Wagner of New York felt it necessary to inform a
Manhattan audience that “neither Franklin Roosevelt nor I are any
closer to the Communists than we are to the Hottentots.**49
Democratic sensitivity over the communist issue became so great at
one point that the Administration took the unusual step of indirectly
asking Stalin not to endorse Roosevelt. On two occasions in October,
Samuel Rosenman, the President’s speech-writer, expressed fear to Joseph
Davies that any intimation from Moscow that Stalin favored Roosevelt’s
reelection might hurt the Democratic Party. Davies offered to send a
48 Sherwood, Roosevelt and Hopkins, pp. 328—29; Roosevelt radio address of Octo­
ber 5, 1944, FDR: Public Papers, XIII, 323-24.
49 James K. Finn to Hopkins, October 29, 1944, Hopkins MSS, Box 120; Cox first
draft, Crowley campaign speech, October 16, 1944, copy in Cox Diary, Cox MSS;
New York Times, October 10, 1944.
The Soviet Union and W orld Revolution 61

personal message to the Soviet leader conveying this concern and asking
him to have Russian newspapers “pipe down“ in their commentary on
American politics. Undersecretary of State Edward R. Stettinius, Jr., tele­
phoned Davies from the W hite House on October 20 approving the
idea, and on the same day Davies dispatched to Stalin through the So­
viet Embassy in Washington the following personal note:
I earnestly hope that the recent public statements by Governor Dewey, the
Republican candidate, will not be replied to or commented on by the Soviet
press for the present. They would be republished here and seized upon by
hostile forces, and charged by them to be an intrusion into the private politi­
cal affairs of our country by a foreign Government. It would be directed to
arouse resentment among certain of our people, who other wise would be fa­
vorable.50
The Democrats need not have worried. Popular antipathy for commu­
nism did not translate itself into votes against the Administration’s Rus­
sian policy. Nor did Republican charges of American communist support
for Roosevelt significantly cut into the President’s majority. Senator
Arthur H. Vandenberg concluded from the results that “there is a wide
difference of opinion in the country regarding Communism— and a
majority of our electorate has just indicated that it does not seem very
worried about it.” 51 Vandenberg’s conclusion was only partially correct.
Americans bitterly opposed communism inside the United States, but
simply found it difficult to take Earl Browder and his pitiful band of fol­
lowers seriously. Should the Soviet Union resume, or appear to resume,
its efforts to spread communism outside its borders, however, the threat
would seem much more ominous.

Americans both inside and outside the government demonstrated a

substantial lack of sophistication in assessing the relationship between
ideology and Soviet foreign policy during World War II. Influenced by a
domestic tradition which attached little importance to political theory,
they tended to underrate the importance of ideological considerations in
other countries. Prominent “experts” on Russia showed only dim aware­
ness of the degree of tactical flexibility which Marxist-Leninist doctrine
50 Davies Journal, October 8, 14, and 20, 1944; Davies to Stalin, October 20, 1944,
Davies MSS, Box 15.
51 Vandenberg to James V. Oxtoby, Jr., November 15, 1944, Vandenberg MSS.
62 The Soviet Union and W orld Revolution

allowed, and hence frequently overemphasized the significance of Stalin's

attempts to sweep ideology under the rug in the interests of the war ef­
fort. Furthermore, “informed" observers failed to take into account the
ability of a totalitarian regime to rally widespread public support, espe­
cially in periods of national crisis. Confronted with evidence that the
Russian people were willing to fight for their government, many Ameri­
cans jumped illogically to the conclusion that the Soviet Union had sud­
denly become a democracy.52 These inaccurate perceptions left the
United States ill-prepared for postwar developments, including Joseph
Stalin's firm assurance to all concerned that reports of his conversion to
the liberal democratic tradition had been highly exaggerated.
f

52 Tang Tsou reaches similar, conclusions regarding American perceptions of

Chinese Communism in Americans Failure in C hina , I, 204—5, 219—21. See also Ken­
neth E. Shewmaker, A m erican s a n d C hinese C o m m u n ists, 1 9 2 7 —1 9 4 5 : A Persuading
E ncounter.
 Cooperating for Victory:
Defeating Germany and Javan

In August, 1943» William G Bullitt submitted a lengthy memorandum

to his old friend Franklin Roosevelt warning of an imminent “political
catastrophe” in Europe. The United States and Great Britain had rightly
judged Hitler’s conquest of Europe to be “an intolerable menace to . . .
their free institutions,” Bullitt asserted, but “domination of Europe by
Stalin’s Communist dictatorship would be as great a threat.” Unfortu­
nately, the British and Americans needed Russia’s help in the war
against Germany if they were to keep their casualties within tolerable
limits. The problem, therefore, was to find some way to prevent “the
domination of Europe by the Moscow dictatorship without losing the
participation of the Red Army in the war against the Nazi dictatorship.”
Bullitt’s argument reflected a central dilemma of American military
strategy during World W ar II: victory over the Axis depended upon co­
operation with the Soviet Union, yet defeat of Germany and Japan
would mean a vast increase in Russian power in Europe and the Far
East, a development which might well preclude realization of such vital
postwar objectives as self-determination and the revival of multilateral
trade. Bullitt’s solution to this problem was to devise operations against
Germany which would place Allied forces in a position to counteract
Russian influence in Eastern Europe— an Anglo-American invasion of
the Balkans would accomplish this, he believed—while at the same
64 Cooperating fo r Victory

time making further aid to the Soviet Union, both for wartime and for
postwar purposes, contingent upon Moscow’s acceptance of Washing­
ton’s war aims. “W ar is an attempt to achieve political objectives by
fighting,” he reminded Roosevelt, “and political objectives must be kept
in mind in planning operations.” 1
F.D.R. did not have to be warned of risks of collaborating with Mos­
cow. “I don’t dispute your facts,” he told Bullitt. “They are accurate. I
don’t dispute the logic of your reasoning.” But the President made it
clear that he did not intend to follow Bullitt’s advice:
I just have a hunch that Stalin is not that kind of man. Harry [Hopkins]
says he’s not and that he doesn’t want anything but security for his country,
and I think that if I give him everything I possibly can and ask nothing
from him in return, noblesse oblige, he won’t try to annex anything and will
work with me for a world of democracy and peace.
Bullitt retorted that Stalin was “a Caucasian bandit whose only thought
when he got something for nothing was that the other fellow was an
ass,” but Roosevelt cut him off: “It’s my responsibility and not yours;
and I’m going to play my hunch.” 2
As was often the case with Roosevelt, his “hunch” was based on
sound reasoning. No one could yet exclude the possibility that Stalin, if
pressed too hard, might make a separate peace with Hitler. Even if the
Russian dictator did agree to support American war aims, there could be
no assurance that he would keep his promise. Furthermore, Roosevelt
was extremely conscious of the limits of American power. United States
troops could not counteract Russian moves in Eastern Europe without
imposing unacceptable demands on the nation’s manpower pool and
productive facilities— already stretched to the limit by simultaneous
operations against Germany and Japan.3 Such a maneuver would also
1 Bullitt to Roosevelt, August 10, 1943, Roosevelt MSS, PSF: “Bullitt." See also
Bullitt to Roosevelt, January 29 and May 12, 1943, ib id .
2 Bullitt, “How We Won the W ar and Lost the Peace," Life, XXV (August 30,
1948), 94. Bullitt is vague about the precise date when this conversation took place,
but there is no doubt that it substantially reflects Roosevelt's position.
3 The United States could have considerably increased the size of its armed forces,
but only at the expense of vital war production. On this point, see Matloff, Strategic
P lan n in g , 1943—44, pp. 115—16. Greenfield, A m erica n S tra teg y in W o rld W ar II, pp.
6—7, 75—76; and Richard M. Leighton, “ OVERLORD Revisited: An Interpretation of
Cooperating fo r Victory 65

endanger prospects for Soviet assistance in the Far East, which American
military leaders badly wanted. Finally, the President felt certain that
public opinion would not tolerate keeping United States forces overseas
after the war, a clear necessity if Soviet influence was to be contained.*4
Roosevelt therefore rejected Bullitt’s suggestion that he reorient military
strategy in accordance with postwar political objectives. Instead he con­
centrated on achieving total victory over the Axis, trusting that a mu­
tual desire to avoid further conflict would compel Russians and Ameri­
cans to coexist peacefully after the war.
Roosevelt failed to see, however, how his strategy for winning the war
might undermine his effort to build trust between Washington and
Moscow. F.D.R. sought to defeat the Axis through the maximum possi­
ble use of American industrial power, but with the minimum possible
expenditure of American lives.5 Such a policy precluded launching mili­
tary operations when chances for success were not high. Yet to the Rus­
sians, who did not enjoy the luxury of deciding where and how they
would fight Germany, a “blood sacrifice” in the form of an early second
front seemed the acid test of Anglo-American intentions. Roosevelt led
the Russians to expect such a front in Europe in 1942, but then en­
dorsed a British proposal to invade North Africa, thereby delaying the
full cross-channel attack until 1944. At the time, each decision appeared
to be in the best interests of the anti-Axis coalition, but the two-year gap
between promise and performance convinced the Russians that their cap­
italist comrades had decided to let them carry the main burden of the
war. The resulting atmosphere of suspicion was hardly conducive to
American Strategy in the European War, 1942—1944,” American Historical Review,
LXVIII (July, 1963), 928, 937, both emphasize the limitations which logistical con­
siderations imposed on United States strategic planning.
4 On this point, see William R. Emerson, “F.D.R.,” in Ernest R. May, ed., The Ul­
timate Decision, pp. 168—72.
5 Kent Roberts Greenfield argues that Roosevelt believed “that the role of America
was from first to last to serve as 'the arsenal of Democracy/ and that its proper contri­
bution to victory was to confront its enemies with a rapidly growing weight of mate­
rial power that they could not hope to match; then to use it to crush them with a
minimum expenditure of American lives.” {American Strategy in World War II, p.
74.) See also Kolko, The Politics o f War, pp. 14, 20; Burns, Roosevelt: The Soldier
o f Freedom, pp. 86, 546; and Richard M. Leighton and Robert W. Coakley, Global
Logistics and Strategy, 1940—1943, pp. 137—40.
66 Cooperating fo r Victory

Roosevelt’s “grand design” for placing postwar Soviet-American rela­

tions on a firm basis of mutual understanding.

I
In planning initial military operations against the Axis, Roosevelt had
two basic requirements. Despite the fact that Japan’s attack on Pearl
Harbor had brought the United States into the war, he insisted on tak­
ing the offensive against Hitler. Almost a year earlier, British and Amer­
ican military chiefs had decided that should their two countries become
involved in war with both Germany and Japan, their principal effort
would be directed toward defeating Germany first Roosevelt fully sup­
ported this strategy, because only through it could he ensure attainment
of one of his major political objectives— the survival of Great Britain.
The President’s second requirement followed logically from the first:
that American troops should engage the Germans as soon as possible.
Acutely sensitive to public opinion, F.D.R. feared that if action against
the Nazis was delayed, domestic pressure to pay the Japanese back for
Pearl Harbor would become irresistible. It was “very important to mo­
rale,” he told Army Chief of Staff General George C. Marshall late in
1941, “to give this country a feeling that they are in the war, [and] to
give the Germans the reverse effect, to have American troops somewhere
in active fighting across the Atlantic.” 6
At the ARCADIA conference in Washington at the end of 1941, Win­
ston Churchill proposed an Anglo-American invasion of North Africa as
a first step in “closing the ring” on Germany, to be followed in 1943 by
landings on the European continent itself. Roosevelt expressed interest
in this idea, especially when the Prime Minister suggested that Vichy
authorities might be persuaded to “invite” Allied troops into areas under
their control with little or no resistance. American military officials re-
6 Marshall memorandum of conversation with Roosevelt, December 23, 1941,
quoted in Maurice Matloff and Edwin L. Snell, S trategic P lan n in g f o r C oalition W ar -
fa re, 1 9 4 1 - 4 2 , p. 105. See also Stimson to Hopkins, August 4, 1943, FR: W ashing­
to n a n d Q u ebec, p. 445; and Greenfield, A m erica n S tra teg y in W o rld W ar 11, p. 59.
For the “Germany first“ decision, see Louis Morton, “Germany First: The Basic Con­
cept of Allied Strategy in World W ar II,“ in Kent Roberts Greenfield, ed.. C om m an d
D ecision s, pp. 11—47.
Cooperating fo r Victory 67

sponded skeptically, however, arguing that the North African project re­
lied too much on tenuous lines of communication and would make only
an indirect contribution to victory. Moreover, the Americans darkly sus­
pected the British of being “motivated more largely by political than by
sound strategic purposes.” General Marshall and his advisers favored
more forthright methods: “We've got to go to Europe and fight,” Gen­
eral Dwight D. Eisenhower, deputy chief of the Army's W ar Plans Divi­
sion, wrote early in 1942, “we’ve got to begin slugging with air at West
Europe; to be followed by a land attack as soon as possible” 7
One of the main reasons why American strategists wanted an early in­
vasion of Europe was their desire to help Russia. The Red Army's
staunch resistance to Hitler had strongly reinforced the logic of the
“Germany first” decision. “We would be guilty of one of the grossest
military blunders of all history,” Eisenhower observed, “if Germany
should be permitted to eliminate an Allied army of 8,000,000 men.” Ei­
senhower believed that two things would be necessary to keep the Soviet
Union in the war: direct lend-lease aid, and “the early initiation of oper­
ations that will draw off from the Russian front sizable portions of the
German Army, both air and ground.” An invasion of France launched
from Great Britain seemed the most practical way to accomplish this
objective. In addition to relieving Russia, it would strike the Germans in
the most direct manner possible, permitting maximum utilization of
shipping and air power without endangering the security of the British
Isles. General Marshall endorsed Eisenhower's conclusions, and by the
end of March, 1942, had won Roosevelt's tentative approval of them.
“Your people and mine demand the establishment of a front to draw off
7 Undated memorandum by Major General Stanley D. Embick, quoted in Matloff
and Snell, S tra teg ic P la n n in g , 1 9 4 1 —4 2 , p. 104; Eisenhower desk diary note, Janu­
ary 22, 1942, E isen h ow er Papers, I, 66. For the British proposal, see Churchill, T h e
G ra n d A llia n ce, pp. 545—55. The ARCADIA discussions are covered in Matloff and
Snell, chapter 5; and FR: Casablanca, pp. 3—415. Suspicion of British motives was
widespread among American military officials at this time. General Marshall later re­
called: "On one occasion our people brought in an objection to something the British
wanted. I didn’t see anything wrong with the British proposal, but our planners . . .
explained that there was an ulterior purpose in this thing. . . . Later [Sir Charles]
Portal [Chief of the Royal Air Force] said that he had drafted the proposal and that
it was taken from a memorandum of ours. And it was a fact; he showed it to m e .. . .
Our own paragraph was the key of our objection." (Marshall interview with Forrest C.
Pogue, October 29, 1956, quoted in Pogue, M arshall: O rdeal an d H ope, p. 264.)
68 Cooperating fo r Victory

pressure on the Russians,” F.D.R. wrote Churchill early in April, “and

these people are wise enough to see that Russians are today killing more
Germans and destroying more equipment than you and I put together.” 8
But ROUND-UP, the American plan for invading France, had one great
liability: it could not take place until the spring of 1943, the earliest
date at which the necessary military build-up in Great Britain would be
complete. Roosevelt felt that he could not wait this long. “I am beeom-
*

ing more and more interested in the establishment of a new front this
summer,” he informed Churchill in March, 1942. F.D.R. knew that from
the strictly military point of view it made sense to delay landings in
France until 1943, but as president he had to take into account political
considerations as well: “The necessities of the case call for action in
1942— not 1943,” he told his military advisers. “I regard it as essen­
tial that active operations be conducted in 1942.” General Marshall
later recalled that he learned an important lesson from this incident:
“The leader in a democracy has to keep the people entertained.. . . The
people demand action. We couldn’t wait to be completely ready.” 9
Aside from his desire to maintain domestic support for the “Germany
first” strategy, Roosevelt had an additional political reason for wanting
to avoid delay. Late in May, 1942, Soviet Foreign Minister Molotov had
come to Washington to discuss the question of a second front. The Rus­
sians hoped to hold out, Molotov said, but “it was only right to look at
the darker side of the picture.” Hitler might be able to defeat the Red
Army unless the Anglo-Americans could begin offensive action soon to
draw off forty German divisions. The Soviet government wanted “a
straight answer”: could it expect a second front by the end of the year?
Over Marshall’s objections, Roosevelt authorized Molotov to inform Sta-
8 Eisenhower memorandum, July 17, 1942, E isen h ow er Papers, I, 389; Eisenhower
to Marshall, February 28, 1942, ib(id., p. 151; Roosevelt to Churchill, April 3, 1942,
quoted in Churchill, T h e H in g e o f Fate, p. 274. On the reasoning behind plans for
the cross-channel attack, see Eisenhower, C rusade in E urope, p. 45; Matlofif and Snell,
S tra teg ic P lan n in g, Î 9 4 1 —4 2 , pp. 177—79, 181—85; Pogue, M arsh all: O rdeal an d
H o p e , p. 305; and Sherwood, R o o se v e lt a n d H o p k in s, pp. 519—20.
9 Roosevelt to Churchill, March 9, 1942, quoted in Sherwood, R o o se v e lt a n d H o p ­
kin s, p. 518; Roosevelt memorandum of May 6, 1942, quoted in Gordon Harrison,
C ross-C hannel A tta c k , p. 24; Marshall interview with Forrest Pogue, November 13,
1956, quoted in Pogue, M arshall: O rdeal a n d H o p e, p. 330. See also Harry Hopkins
to Roosevelt, March 14, 1942, quoted in Sherwood, R o o se v e lt a n d H o p k in s, p. 519.
Cooperating fo r Victory 69

lin that the United States and Great Britain would attack the Germans
somewhere in Europe before the end of 1942.101
Like his military chiefs, F.D.R. was seriously concerned about the Red
Army's capacity to repel another German summer offensive, and hoped
to encourage the Russians by promising that help was on the way. Fur­
thermore, Molotov had just signed the Anglo-Soviet treaty of friendship
without pressing for endorsement of Russian boundary claims in Eastern
Europe. In return for this concession to American sensibilities, Moscow
clearly expected assurances about the second front. It is unclear how lit­
erally Stalin interpreted Roosevelt's promise. Churchill warned Molotov
that, while the Western allies would do their best, they would not en­
gage in suicidal operations simply to meet the President's timetable. Sta­
lin himself admitted to American ambassador William H. Standley in
July that wanting a second front and actually having one were two dif­
ferent things. But the second-front pledge was widely publicized inside
the Soviet Union, leading Standley to comment that if it was not ful­
filled, “these people will be so deluded in their belief in our sincerity of
purpose . . . that inestimable harm will be done to the cause of the
United Nations.” 11
Faced with the President's call for action before the end of the year,
War Department strategists began pushing s l e d g e h a m m e r , an opera­
tion involving quick landings on the French coast in the fall of 1942.
Although logistical limitations made success doubtful, Eisenhower fa­
vored taking the risk because even a failure would at least convince the
Russians “that we are trying to assist.” But s l e d g e h a m m e r soon en­
countered the unyielding opposition of the British. The terrible memory
of World War I made Churchill and his generals even more determined
than Roosevelt to keep casualties down. With this in mind, they favored
striking at Germany through a series of amphibious landings around the
10 Roosevelt-Molotov conversation, May, 1942, FR: 1 9 4 2 , III, 577, 582—83; Pogue,
M arshall: O rd ea l a n d H o p e, pp. 326—27. The public communiqué issued after the
Molotov visit announced that “in the course of the conversations full understanding
was reached with regard to the urgent tasks of creating a Second Front in Europe in
1942.“ (White House press release, June 11, 1942, FR: 1 9 4 2 , III, 594.)
11 Divine, R o o se v e lt a n d W o rld W ar II, pp. 88—89; Churchill, T h e H in g e o f Fate,
p. 297; Standley to Hull, June 22 and July 22, 1942, FR: 1 9 4 2 , III, 598, 612. For
the relationship of the second front to Soviet boundary claims, see chapter 1.
70 Cooperating fo r Victory

periphery of Hitler’s Europe, together with a tight naval blockade and

heavy aerial bombardment. The British supported an eventual invasion
of the European continent, but hoped to postpone it until other measures
had severely weakened German resistance. Painfully aware that the
s l e d g e h a m m e r landings, if they took place, would involve mostly Brit­
ish troops, the Prime Minister and his Chiefs of Staff decided in July,
1942, to veto the operation.12
American military planners reacted violently to this news. Secretary
of War Henry L. Stimson warned Roosevelt that Churchill had a
chronic addiction to “half-baked” diversionary schemes, and solemnly
advised the President to read up on the disastrous World W ar I Darda­
nelles campaign. The Joint Chiefs of Staff recommended that if the Brit­
ish repudiated s l e d g e h a m m e r , the United States should abandon its
“Germany first” strategy and assume the offensive against Japan. But the
President refused to consider this drastic proposal. Placing Anglo-Ameri­
can unity above all else, he ordered the Joint Chiefs to accept Churchill’s
alternative plan for engaging the Germans in 1942: an autumn invasion
of North Africa. Eisenhower, who would command the North African
operation, viewed the demise of s l e d g e h a m m e r bitterly:
The whole thing seems to me to be absurdly simple. I believe in direct meth­
ods, possibly because I am too simple-minded to be an intriguer or to at­
tempt to be clever. However, I am no longer in the places where these great
questions have to be settled. My only job is to carry out my directives as well
as I can.13
Pleased by the President’s decision, Churchill volunteered to fly to
Moscow in August to tell Stalin that there would be no second front in
12 Eisenhower memorandum, July 17, 1942, E isen h ow er Papers, I, 389. Sec also
Greenfield, A m erica n S tra teg y in W o rld W ar II, p. 58; Matloff and Snell, S trategic
P lan n in g, 1 9 4 1 - 4 2 , pp. 278—84; Harrison, C ross-C hannel A tta c k , pp. 26—32. Samuel
Eliot Morison, S tra teg y a n d C o m p ro m ise, chapter 4, presents the traditional interpreta­
tion of the conflict between British and American strategic concepts, a view now modi­
fied somewhat b y Leighton, “ OVERLORD Revisited,“ pp. 921—23; and Greenfield,
A m erica n S tra teg y in W o rld W ar II, chapter 2. For British reservations regarding
SLEDGEHAMMER, see Pogue, M arshall: O rd ea l a n d H o p e, pp. 315—18; Churchill, T h e
H in g e o f Pate, pp. 282—83; and McNeill, A m erica , B rita in , an d Russia, p. 174.
13 Pogue, M arshall: O rd ea l an d H o p e, pp. 340—42; Matloff and Snell, Strategic
P lan n in g, 1 9 4 1 —4 2 , pp. 268—70; Leo Meyer, “The Decision to Invade North Africa,“
in Greenfield, ed., C o m m a n d D ecision s, pp. 182—88; Eisenhower to Fox Conner, Au­
gust 21, 1942, E isen h ow er Papers, I, 485.
Cooperating fo r Victory 71

Europe in 1942. “It was like carrying a large lump of ice to the North
Pole,” he later wrote. Russian cinema audiences enthusiastically cheered
films of the Prime Minister's visit, erroneously interpreting his two-fin­
gered “victory” sign as a promise of a second front. Stalin took the news
with bitterness, but eventually managed to work up some enthusiasm for
the North African operation as the next best thing. “May God prosper
this undertaking,” he remarked to Churchill with un-Marxian empha­
sis.14
Whether or not Stalin really expected a European second front in
1942, he did manage to reap considerable propaganda advantages from
his allies' failure to fulfill Roosevelt’s pledge. Wendell Willkie remarked
while visiting Moscow in September that the American people might
have to “prod” their generals a bit to get the second front under way, a
comment which provoked Roosevelt into making cutting remarks about
unnamed “typewriter strategists.” In an October newspaper interview,
Stalin observed that the second front still occupied a “primary place” in
Soviet military planning, and that without it, lend-lease assistance to
Russia was “of little effect.” The Soviet leader called pointedly for “com­
plete and timely fulfillment by Allies of their obligations.” On the eve of
the North African landings, Joseph E. Davies told reporters that the
Russian leaders had shown remarkable tolerance and forbearance in
their requests for a second front. Roosevelt obliquely responded to these
criticisms in a press conference on November 10: “If you had all the
luck on your side and the other fellow made all the mistakes,” F.D.R.
observed, one might be able to throw a military plan together on the
spur of the moment and have it work. “But after all, where hundreds of
thousands of lives are involved; we do try to conduct war operations by
what is known as a reasonable chance of success.” 15
Roosevelt's decision to invade North Africa demonstrated the degree
to which both military and political considerations influenced American
14 Churchill’s classic account of this conference is in T h e H in g e o f Fate, pp.
411—37. See also Harriman to Roosevelt, August 13, 1942, F R : 1 9 4 2 , III, 620; and
Standley to Hull, August 25, 1942, ib id., 634.
15 Undated report by Ambassador Standley on Willkie’s trip, FR: 1 9 4 2 , III, 647;
Sherwood, R o o se v e lt a n d H o p k in s, pp. 634—35; Stalin interview with Henry Cassidy,
Pravda, October 5, 1942, quoted in FR: 1 9 4 2 , III, 461; N e w Y o rk T im es, November
8, 1942; F D R : P u blic Papers, XI, 462—63. See also Loy Henderson to Hull, October
15, 1942, FR: 1 9 4 2 , III, 464-66.
72 Cooperating fo r Victory

strategy. On strictly military grounds, a cross-channel attack in the

spring of 1943 seemed to offer the quickest way to victory. But, for po­
litical reasons, F.D.R. could not delay action that long: domestic support
for the “Germany first” strategy might wane, while the Russians, if no
help came by the end of the year, might seek a separate peace. Roosevelt
could not get a second front in Europe in 1942 without alienating the
British, however, so he settled for a compromise— North Africa. The
President later explained to a press conference:
We did agree to start a second front of sorts [in 1942], and when it came
down to the point, it seemed best to start it at a place called Algiers. . . .
That was done. Now,. . . you can write pages and pages on what you mean
by a second front. . . . No . . . two people in this room will agree. . . . At
least, action was taken.16
But Roosevelt failed to take into account the political impact which the
North African decision would have on his own plan for postwar cooper­
ation with the Soviet Union.

II
The invasion of North Africa, as American military leaders feared, pre­
cluded establishment of a second front in Europe in 1943. Temporary
but unexpected resistance by the Vichy French, together with German
tenacity, prevented the operation from going as quickly as had been
hoped. Not until May, 1943, did the Germans give up in Tunisia. More­
over, Roosevelt and Churchill decided at Casablanca to follow the North
African victory with an attack on Sicily, in an effort to knock Italy out
of the war. This made landings in France impossible in 1943, although
the final decision to put off the invasion was not made until later that
year. In retrospect, it seems clear that postponement of the cross-channel
attack saved the British and Americans from a major military disaster.17
But the delay severely strained the alliance with the Soviet Union, leav­
ing the Russians to feel, with considerable justification, that they had
been left to do most of the fighting against Germany.
16 Press conference of February 23, 1943, Roosevelt MSS, PPF 1-P, Vol. XXI.
17 Harrison, C ross-C hannel A tta c k , pp. 38—45, 89; Matloff, S tra teg ic Planning,
1943—44, p- 131; Eisenhower, Crusade in E urope, p. 71; Morison, S trategy an d C o m ­
p ro m ise , pp. 46—47.
Cooperating fo r Victory 73

The absence of a second front brought Soviet-American relations to a

low point in the summer of 1943, leading some observers to consider the
possibility that Stalin might yet conclude a separate peace with Ger­
many. Joseph E. Davies reported from Moscow in May that many Soviet
leaders believed their Anglo-American allies wanted “a weakened Russia
at the peace table and a Red Army that is bled white.” He warned: “If
Great Britain and the United States fail to ‘deliver’ on the western front
in Europe this summer, it will have far reaching effects upon the Soviets
that will be effective both on their attitude in the prosecution of this
war and in their participation in the reconstruction of the peace.” Davies
mentioned the existence of “an appeasement group” in the Soviet Union,
and thought it possible that the Russians might content themselves with
simply liberating their own territory, without trying to bring about the
total defeat of Germany. State Department Russian expert Charles E.
Bohlen noted in June that while there was no evidence that the Rus­
sians would try to deal with Hitler, the possibility could not be ruled out
for the simple reason that “a dictatorship responsive. . . to the views of
one man is of necessity unpredictable.” 18
In July, 1943, the Soviet government announced formation of a “Free
Germany” Committee, composed of German exiles in Russia, a move
which Ambassador Standley interpreted as evidence that Moscow in­
tended to follow “an independent policy” in Central and Eastern Europe.
State Department officials saw even more ominous implications in the
Russian action: Stalin, they feared, was clearing the way for negotiations
with a pro-Soviet government in Germany should Hitler be overthrown.
Assistant Secretary of State Breckinridge Long noted in his diary that “if
Russia should pull out of the war it would leave us in a terrible situation
in Europe and would make it infinitely more difficult for us to conquer
Japan.” As late as October, 1943, Roosevelt was still sufficiently con­
cerned about Stalin’s intentions to ask Standley: “What do you think,
Bill, will he make a separate peace with Hitler?” 19
18 Davies to Roosevelt, May 29, 1943, Roosevelt MSS, PSF 18: ‘‘Russia”; Bohlen
memorandum of June 24, 1943, FR: 1943, III, 668». See also Sherwood, R o o se v e lt
a n d H o p k in s , p. 734; and Feis, C h u rch ill , R o o sevelt, S talin , pp. 134—35.
19 Standley to Hull, July 22 and 23, 1943, FR: 1943, III, 552—54; Hull to Stand-
ley, July 30, 1943, ib id ,, pp. 557—58; James C. Dunn to Major General George V.
Strong, August 11, 1943, cited in Matloff, S trategic P lann ing, 1943—44, p. 286»; Long
Diary, August 9, 1943, Israel, ed.. L on g D ia ry, p. 320; Standley and Ageton, A d m ira l
A m ba ssa d o r to Russia, p. 498. For other expressions of concern about a separate peace
74 Cooperating fo r Victory

But the prospect of a new Nazi-Soviet Pact, though worrisome, grew

increasingly remote as the military situation on the eastern front im­
proved. Gradually it became clear that the Red Army's victory at Stalin­
grad in the winter of 1942-43 had marked a decisive turning point.
After smashing German resistance in massive battles around Kursk,
Orel, and Kharkov in the summer of 1943, the Russians began an ad­
vance on a broad front which within two years would carry them to
Berlin. Anglo-American efforts in the Mediterranean seemed paltry by
comparison— Stalin had complained publicly in February, 1943, that
“the Red Army alone is bearing the whole weight of the war.” 20 The
chief danger now seemed to be not that the Russians would stop fighting
but that they would regard their victories as having earned them the
right to demand a dominant role in shaping the peace settlement.
General Marshall warned Roosevelt in March that if the Russians got
to Germany before the Western allies, “a most unfortunate diplomatic
situation” would follow. By August he was speculating whether “in the
event of an overwhelming Russian success,. . . the Germans [would]
be likely to facilitate our entry into the country to repel the Russians.”
Secretary of W ar Stimson observed that further delay in launching the
cross-channel attack would have dangerous implications, for “Stalin
won’t have much of an opinion of people who have done that and we
will not be able to share much of the postwar world with him.” Am­
bassador Standley, writing from Moscow on August 10, noted that the
absence of a second front gave the Russians a definite political advan­
tage:
It . . . prepares the ground for a strong stand in the field of foreign policy.
To the extent that people believe that the Soviet Union carried the major
burden of winning the war and that the United States and Great Britain
withheld assistance which they could have given, they will be more inclined
see William C. Bullitt to Roosevelt, August 10, 1943, Roosevelt MSS, PSF: “Bullitt”;
William D. Leahy, 1 W as T h ere , p. 185; Sherwood, R o o se v e lt a n d H o p k in s , p. 734;
and FR: 1943, III, 246, 621-23, 667-68, 674, 682, 684-87, 690, 695-99, and
708—9. For retrospective assessments of the validity of these fears, see Snell, Illusion
a n d N e c e ssity , pp. 125—26; Feis, C h u rch ill, R o o sevelt, S talin , p. 143; and McNeill,
A m erica , B rita in , a n d Russia, p. 324.
20 Stalin “order of the day,” issued on the 25th anniversary of the establishment of
the Red Army, February 23, 1943, FR: 1943, III, 506—8. Churchill summarizes devel­
opments on the eastern front in 1943 with his customary succinctness in C losing th e
R in g , p p . 221—23.
Cooperating fo r Victory 75

to support a claim that the Soviet Union should have the greatest voice in
determining the peace.
Moreover, unless the British and Americans extended significant military
assistance to the Russians in the struggle against Germany, they could
hardly expect much help from Stalin in the war against Japan. A stra­
tegic estimate prepared late in the summer of 1943 concluded that “the
most important factor the United States has to consider in relation to
Russia is the prosecution of the war in the Pacific.” If the Far Eastern
conflict had to be carried on without Russia’s help, “the difficulties will
be immeasurably increased and operations might become abortive.” 21
The Joint Chiefs of Staff summarized the relationship between strat­
egy and politics in a memorandum prepared in September, 1943. The
end of the war, they recognized, would place the Soviet Union in a dom­
inant position throughout Eastern and Central Europe, giving it the
power to impose whatever territorial settlements it wanted. But the
United States still depended on Russian assistance to win the war
against Germany— a separate Russo-German peace would make
large-scale Anglo-American military operations on the European conti­
nent impossible. Furthermore, Russian help would be needed against
Japan.22 Although the Joint Chiefs drew no conclusions from their anal­
ysis, its implications were clear: the price of military aid from the Soviet
Union against Germany and Japan would be a significant expansion of
Russian influence after the war.
But President Roosevelt showed little inclination to let such postwar
considerations affect his plans for operations against Germany. F.D.R.
did mention to the Joint Chiefs on two occasions in 1943 the need to
beat the Russians to Berlin, but after his cordial meeting with Stalin at
Teheran in December said nothing more about this. When General Ei-
21 Marshall memorandum of conversation with Roosevelt, March 30, 1943, quoted
in Matloff, S tra teg ic P lanning, 1 9 4 3 - 4 4 , pp. 68-69; Combined Chiefs of Staff min­
utes, meeting of August 20, 1943, Quebec, PR : W a sh in g to n a n d Q uebec , p. 911;
Stimson Diary, May 17, 1943, quoted in Henry L. Stimson and McGeorge Bundy, O n
A c tiv e S ervice in Peace a n d W ar, p. 527; Standley to Hull, August 10, 1943, PR:
1943, III, 562; General James H. Burns to Harry Hopkins, August 10, 1943, FR:
W a sh in g to n a n d Q uebec, pp. 624—27. See also Sherwood, R o o se v e lt an d H o p k in s, pp.
748-49.
22 JCS 506, “Instructions Concerning Duty as Military Observer at American-Brit-
ish-Soviet Conference," September 18, 1943, cited in Matloff, S trategic P lann ing,
1943-44, pp. 292-93.
76 Cooperating fo r Victory

senhower concluded in March, 1945, that the German capital was “no
longer a particularly important objective,” Roosevelt registered no com­
plaints. The President made no effort to accelerate plans for the 1944
cross-channel attack, now code-named o v e r l o r d , in hopes of establish­
ing a counterweight to growing Soviet influence in Europe. Instead he
carefully delayed the invasion until Anglo-American forces had accumu­
lated sufficient resources to ensure its success without seriously hamper­
ing operations under way in other theaters, particularly the Pacific.23
If any postwar consideration shaped Washington’s strategy, it was the
desire to minimize overseas political responsibilities after Germany’s sur­
render. Throughout the summer and fall of 1943 Churchill, though
never explicitly repudiating plans for o v e r l o r d , continually pushed for
additional operations in the Mediterranean and the Balkans. War De­
partment planners regarded the Prime Minister’s motives as blatantly
political: he hoped, they believed, to let Russia defeat Germany while
Britain used American resources to prop up the remains of its empire.
The Joint Chiefs defended o v e r l o r d as a purely military operation
which would bring all anti-Axis forces together in the most efficient
manner possible for the sole purpose of defeating Germany, without in­
volving the United States in complicated postwar political entangle­
ments. Roosevelt agreed, commenting that it was “unwise to plan mili­
tary strategy based on a gamble as to political results.” 24
23 Combined Chiefs of Staff minutes, meeting with Roosevelt and Churchill, Quebec,
August 23, 1943, quoted in Matloff, S trategic P lan n in g, 1943-44, p. 226; Joint
Chiefs of Staff minutes, meeting with Roosevelt, en route to Teheran, November 19,
1943, FR : T ehran, p. 255; Eisenhower to Marshall, March 30, 1945, E isenhow er Pa­
p ers, IV, 2561. Gabriel Kolko argues that American strategists did seek to counteract
growing Soviet influence in Europe by establishing a military presence there as soon as
possible. But his view does not explain the decision to invade North Africa, which de­
layed the entry of United States troops into Western and Central Europe by at least a
year. Moreover, much of his argument rests upon the existence of RA N K IN (C ), a con­
tingency plan for a quick descent on the continent in the event of a German collapse.
Kolko maintains that this plan was “entirely politically conceived,“ but offers no firm
evidence for this conclusion. A summary of RA N K IN prepared for the Combined
Chiefs of Staff in August, 1943, noted specifically that the plan was to be carried out
in cooperation w ith the Russians. (Kolko, T h e P olitics o f W ar , chapter 1, especially
pp. 28—30; memorandum by Sir Frederick Morgan, “Digest of Operation ‘Rankin/ ”
August 14, 1943, F R : W a sh in g to n an d Q uebec, p. 1018. See also Matloff, Strategic
P lan n in g, 1943—44, pp. 225—27; William M. Franklin, “Zonal Boundaries and Access
to Berlin,“ W o rld P olitics, XVI [October, 1963], 5-7; and Sir Frederick Morgan,
O vertu re to O verlo rd , pp. 57, 104—22.)
24 Joint Chiefs of Staff minutes, meeting with Roosevelt, August 10, 1943, quoted
Cooperating fo r Victory 77

Still, in view of the North African experience, Stimson and his

associates could not help worrying that F.D.R.’s “impulsive nature”
might cause him to yield again to Churchill's blandishments. Shortly be­
fore the Teheran Conference, Roosevelt assured his concerned Secretary
of W ar that he “wouldn’t touch the Balkans.” Stimson replied: “Well,
you can’t even talk about them . . . without frightening people. . . .
Remember, no more Balkans.” These fears proved groundless. American
military chiefs, still deeply suspicious of British political designs, had ex­
aggerated Churchill’s opposition to o v e r l o r d . Moreover, at Teheran
Stalin came out firmly in favor of the cross-channel attack, insisting that
a commander be appointed quickly, “otherwise nothing would come out
of the operation.” Impressed, Roosevelt resolved any doubts he may have
had, endorsed unequivocally the 1944 landings in France, and named
General Eisenhower supreme commander of the Allied Expeditionary
Forces. “I thank the Lord Stalin was there,” Stimson wrote in his diary;
“he saved the day.” *25
The successful invasion of Normandy in June, 1944, justified to
American strategists their emphasis on military considerations and, at
least for the time being, relieved Stalin’s doubts regarding the willing­
ness of his allies to fight the Germans on a large scale. Congratulating
Roosevelt and Churchill, the Russian dictator proclaimed that “the his­
tory of warfare knows no other like undertaking from the point of view
of its scale, its vast conception, and its masterly execution.” For the mo­
ment, as Churchill noted, “harmony was complete.” 26
Delivery of the second front in Europe placed the Western allies in a
favorable position to press for Russian creation of a second front in the
Far East, where for three years the United States and Great Britain had
been fighting Japan without the help of the Soviet Union. The Pacific
in Matloff, Strategic Planning, 1943-44, p. 215. See also ibid., pp. 173—75, 178—79;
Stimson to Roosevelt, August 10, 1943, Stimson Diary, Stimson MSS; and Emerson,
“F.D.R.,” pp. 168—72. American military planners almost certainly misjudged British
motives in advocating further operations in the Mediterranean and the Balkans. On
this point, see John Ehrman, Grand Strategy, V, 111—18; Leighton, “ OVERLORD Revis­
ited,“ p. 922; and Greenfield, American Strategy in World War II, pp. 41—45.
25 Stimson Diary, October 29, November 4, December 5, 1943, Stimson MSS; min­
utes, 2d plenary meeting, November 29, 1943, FR: Tehran, p. 535; Eisenhower, Cru­
sade in Europe, pp. 206—8. See also Harrison, Cross-Channel Attack, pp. 118—26; and
Matloff, Strategic Planning, 1943—44, pp. 356—69.
26 Stalin to Churchill, June 11, 1944, quoted in Churchill, Triumph and Tragedy,
p. 8.
78 Cooperating fo r Victory

war seemed likely to drag on for some time after the fighting ended in
Europe, and threatened to take a heavy toll in American casualties. Sup­
ply difficulties, together with Chiang Kai-shek's reluctance to fight, had
dashed hopes of employing Chinese manpower in the struggle against
Japan. A Soviet attack through Manchuria would provide a valuable
substitute, containing Japanese armies on the mainland of Asia while
American forces invaded the home islands. The atomic bomb remained a
purely hypothetical weapon at this time, known to only a few top mili­
tary leaders, with no assurance that it would work. Hence, United States
officials received with great pleasure Stalin's promise, given at the Mos­
cow Foreign Ministers' Conference in October, 1943, to enter the war
against Japan after Germany's surrender.27
At the Teheran Conference in December, however, Stalin made it
clear that he would expect political compensation for furnishing military
assistance in the Far East. The Soviet leader did not specify his exact re­
quirements, but acknowledged that Roosevelt's suggestion of a Pacific
warm-water port under international control “would not be bad." One
year later, in December, 1944, Stalin became more precise. Pulling out a
map of the Far East, he indicated to Ambassador Harriman that the So­
viet Union would want the Kurile Islands and lower Sakhalin, leases at
Port Arthur and Dairen, control of the Chinese Eastern and South Man­
churian railroads, and recognition of the independence from China of
Outer Mongolia. At the Yalta Conference in February, 1945, Roosevelt
agreed substantially to these demands and undertook to secure Chiang
Kai-shek's approval of them. In return, Stalin promised to go to war
against Japan within “two or three months" after Germany's defeat, and
to conclude a pact of “friendship and alliance" with Chiang's Nationalist
government in China.28
27 Louis Morton, “Soviet Intervention in the War with Japan,” Foreign Affairs, XL
(July, 1962), 653—57; Ernest R. May, “The United States, the Soviet Union, and the
Far Eastern War, 1941-1945,” Pacific Historical Review, XXIV (May, 1955),
153—63; Matloff, Strategic Planning, 1943—44, pp. 292—93, 433—37, 500—t, 536;
and Hull, Memoirs, II, 1309—11.
28 Roosevelt-Churchill-Stalin meeting, November 30, 1943, PR: Tehran, pp.
567—68; Harriman to Roosevelt, December 15, 1944, PR: Yalta, pp. 378—79;
“Agreement Regarding Entry of the Soviet Union into the War Against Japan,” Feb­
ruary 11, 1945, ibid., p. 984. The Yalta Far Eastern agreement differed from Stalin’s
original demands by providing for internationalization of the port of Dairen and
joint Sino-Soviet operation of the Manchurian railroads. (George A. Lensen, “Yalta
and the Far East,” in John L. Snell, ed.. The Meaning o f Yalta, p. 152.)
Cooperating fo r Victory 79

The Yalta Far Eastern agreement was a dassic example of Roosevelt's

failure to coordinate military strategy with his postwar political objec­
tives. The Joint Chiefs of Staff, speaking strictly in military terms, ad­
vised that Soviet entry into the Japanese war would reduce American
casualties and hasten Tokyo's surrender. But Roosevelt failed to consult
with his civilian advisers regarding the political consequences of this
strategy. The State Department knew nothing of Stalin's demands be­
cause Ambassador Harriman had communicated them directly to Roose­
velt through Navy Department channels. Working independently, State
Department experts had prepared two papers advising against the out­
right transfer of lower Sakhalin and the Kuriles to the Soviet Union, but
these were unaccountably left out of the briefing book prepared for the
President’s use at Yalta. Ironically, the Joint Chiefs had some time ear­
lier concluded that if Stalin entered the Japanese war, he would do so
only when convinced that Japan could be defeated at small cost to him­
self. Nothing which the United States could promise would affect his
timing one way or another.29 But the Joint Chiefs did not regard it as*
part of their job to furnish advice on nonmilitary matters, and appar­
ently never passed this prescient conclusion on to the President.
Roosevelt's second-front diplomacy, in both Europe and the Far East,
reflected his over-all strategy of seeking victory over the Axis as quickly
as possible with the minimum possible loss of American lives. Despite
the Soviet Union's minor role in the war against Japan, this strategy
paid off handsomely in Europe. For three years, from June of 1941 to
June of 1944, the Soviet Union carried the main burden of the fight
against Hitler. On the day Anglo-American forces established the long-
awaited second front in Normandy, the Red Army was still confronting
more than 250 German and satellite divisions along the thousand-mile
eastern front. British and American troops, in France and Italy, faced
less than 90 enemy divisions. Partly because of Russian military suc­
cesses, the United States Army got through the war with less than half
29 Edward R. Stettinius, Jr., Roosevelt and the Russians: The Yalta Conference, pp.
95—96; FR: Yalta, pp. 378», 379—83, 385—88; Matloff, Strategic Planning, 1943-44,
p. 206; JCS memorandum, “U.S.S.R. Capabilities and Intentions in the Far East,” No­
vember 18, 1943, FR: Tehran, p. 242. See also Morton, “Soviet Intervention in the
W ar with Japan,” p. 662. Harriman later argued that Roosevelt agreed to Stalin’s ter­
ritorial demands in order “to limit Soviet expansion in the East and to gain Soviet
support for the Nationalist Government of China.” (“Our Wartime Relations with the
Soviet Union,” Department o f State Bulletin, XXV [September 3, 1951], 373.)
80 Cooperating fo r Victory

the number of divisions prewar plans had indicated would be necessary

for victory. Casualty figures reflect with particular vividness the dispro­
portionate amount of fighting which went on in the east. A conservative
estimate places Soviet war deaths— civilian and military— at ap­
proximately 16 million. Total Anglo-American losses in all theaters
came to less than a million.30
But Roosevelt’s reluctance to incur heavy American casualties could
not help but undermine his plans for postwar cooperation with the
USSR. The long delay in establishing the second front confirmed So­
viet fears that their capitalist allies had deliberately let communist Rus­
sia bear the brunt of the fighting. As a result, the suspicion with which
Stalin had always viewed his Anglo-American associates intensified con­
siderably. Convinced that they had won the war, the Russians showed
little inclination to compromise on major postwar objectives which the
West found unacceptable. Roosevelt probably felt that he had no other
choice— the American people would not have supported sacrificial op­
erations to meet the Russian timetable for a second front. Given ideolog­
ical differences, it seems likely that the Russians would still have dis­
trusted their allies, even if the Anglo-Americans had hurled their forces
against Hitler’s Europe in 1942. But by promising such a maneuver in
1942, and then delaying it until 1944, Roosevelt needlessly aggravated
Soviet hostility toward the West, thereby imperiling his own hopes for
the postwar world.31

Second-front strategy was not the only limitation on the effectiveness of

Roosevelt’s plans to build a cordial relationship with the Soviet Union.
30 On June 6, 1944, Hitler had available on the eastern front, in Finland, and the
Balkans 199 German divisions and 63 Finnish, Rumanian, Hungarian, and Bulgarian
divisions. On the same day there were 61 German divisions available in France and the
Low Countries, plus 23 German and 4 Italian divisions in Italy. (Harrison, Cross-
Channel Attack, Appendix G.) Estimates of casualties are from Gordon Wright, The
Ordeal o f Total War, 1939—1945, pp. 263—65. For the American manpower situation,
see Maurice Matloff, “The 90-Division Gamble,” in Greenfield, ed.. Command Deci­
sions, pp. 365—81.
31 On this point, see Burns, Roosevelt: The Soldier o f freedom, p. 374.
Cooperating fo r Victory 81

The success of a policy depends not simply upon its proclamation at the
top but also on the manner in which it is executed at lower levels. Vir­
tually without exception, subordinate officials responsible for dealing
with the Russians from day to day became convinced that the President’s
openhanded policy was unwise. Moscow felt no obligation to reciprocate
American generosity, they argued; the only way to ensure’ cooperation
was to handle negotiations on a strict quid pro quo basis. As a result,
these officials carried out Roosevelt's program grudgingly, making every
effort behind the scenes to get it revised.
There can be no doubt that thè Russians were difficult to deal with.
Language problems alone meant that negotiations took at least twice as
long as with the British. Americans serving in Russia found the officially
sanctioned suspicion of foreigners oppressive, and puzzled over the rapid­
ity with which Stalin and his top associates could shift from cordiality to
bitter vindictiveness, and back again. Soviet administrative practices
made negotiations even more frustrating— no Russian official could
agree to anything, it seemed, without consulting Stalin himself. The
Russians kept far fewer records than the British or the Americans, but
pride kept them from admitting this. Instead they would turn aside An­
glo-American requests for information with elaborate but hardly believ­
able excuses— in one case General John R. Deane, head of the Ameri­
can military mission in Moscow, was asked to delay a visit to the front
for a few days because “Marshal Vasielievsky would have kidney trouble
until July 20.“ Requests for action would inevitably be countered with
blunt references to the nonexistence of the second front. The sluggish­
ness of the state bureaucracy infuriated the impatient Americans, who
attached great importance to administrative efficiency. “I was in a high
dudgeon much of the time,” Deane later recalled.32
Soviet attitudes toward lend-lease were particularly galling. Represent­
atives from Moscow would arrive in the United States with long lists of
demands, made without regard to American priorities or supply capabili-
32 John R. Deane, The Strange Alliance, pp. 20—21, 34—35, 49—50, 91—92, 98—99,
111, 203. For other accounts of the difficulties of dealing with the Russians, see Ken-
nan, Memoirs, pp. 560—65; Standley and Ageton, Admiral Ambassador to Russia, pas­
sim; and Philip E. Mosely, “Some Soviet Techniques of Negotiation,” in Raymond
Dennett and Joseph E. Johnson, eds., Negotiating with the Russians, pp. 271—303.
The other essays in this volume also provide valuable insights into the difficulties of
dealing with the Russians, based on firsthand experience.
82 Cooperating fo r Victory

ties. Secretary of Agriculture Claude R. Wickard's experience with a

group of Russian food commissioners was typical: “They simply walked
in, all of them sober-faced, never cracked a smile, smart as they could
be. . . . They said, ‘Here is what we want/ And they'd just sit there.
There wasn't much negotiation to it. It was simply a demand. . . .
Sometimes we got the idea that they were just darn, downright stub­
born." At the direction of President Roosevelt, lend-lease authorities
made no effort to evaluate Soviet needs, or to determine the uses to
which the Russians put the equipment they received. Despite this gener­
ous attitude, accorded to no other ally, lend-lease aid did not seem to
make the Russians any easier to deal with. Stalin continued to berate his
allies over the absence of a second front, while ignoring Western re­
quests for an exchange of military information. Furthermore, the Soviet
government showed few signs of appreciation for the aid it had received,
a tendency which provoked Ambassador Standley into complaining pub­
licly about Russian ingratitude at a Moscow press conference in March,
I94333
Despite adverse reaction in Washington to Standley's criticism of an
ally in wartime, American military officials had come to feel by this
time that the United States could safely attach conditions to future
lend-lease shipments without impairing the over-all war effort. The W ar
Department's Operations Division had asserted in January, 1943, that
lend-lease should be continued only if Moscow adopted a more coopera­
tive attitude: “The time is appropriate for us to start some straight-
from-the-shoulder talk with Mr. Joseph Stalin." When the Third Lend-
Lease Protocol came up for negotiation in the spring of 1943, the
Pentagon supported insertion of a provision giving American military
attachés in Russia the same travel rights and access to information as So­
viet representatives had in the United States. Early in 1944, Ambassador
Harriman and General Deane reported from Moscow that the Russians
33Wickard interview with Dean Albertson, in Albertson, Roosevelt's Farmer;
Claude R. Wickard in the New Deal, p. 267; Standley press conference statement,
March 8, 1943, FR: 1943, III, 631-32. See also Matioff, Strategic Planning, 1943—44,
p. 281; Deane, The Strange Alliance, pp. 89—91, 98—99, 102; Leighton and Coakley,
Global Logistics, 1940-43, pp. 551—52; Standley and Ageton, Admiral Ambassador to
Russia, pp. 331—49; and George C. Herring, Jr., “Lend-Lease to Russia and the Ori­
gins of the Cold War, 1944—1945,” Journal o f American History, LVI (June, 1969),
94-96.
Cooperating fo r Victory 83

were misusing American equipment, and that closer scrutiny should be

exercised over USSR aid requests. General Marshall suggested to Presi­
dent Roosevelt in March, 1944, the possibility of using lend-lease as a
“trump card*' to ensure Soviet military cooperation with Allied plans for
the invasion of France. But the White House consistently blocked all of
these attempts to employ lend-lease as a bargaining device. When the
Joint Chiefs of Staff raised the question of how lend-lease termination
should be handled after the war, Roosevelt curtly told them that he
would make the necessary arrangements himself.34
Aside from lend-lease, military cooperation between the United States
and the USSR had not been close during the early years of the war. But
during the last half of 1943, as serious planning for the second front in
Europe got under way, the need arose for some coordination of strategy
with Moscow. Moreover, the Russians had not yet formally committed
themselves to enter the war against Japan. W ith these problems in
mind, President Roosevelt decided to reorganize the American diplo­
matic staff in Moscow— Harriman replaced Standley as ambassador,
while the Joint Chiefs of Staff sent Deane to the Soviet capital as their
representative. The main goal of the Harriman-Deane mission was to
improve diplomatic and military contacts with the Russians.35 As such,
it would provide a good test of what kind of relations could be expected
with the Soviet Union after the war.
The Harriman-Deane operation began auspiciously enough, with Sta­
lin's promise late in October, 1943, to enter the Far Eastern war upon
the defeat of Germany. The Russians also quickly approved “in princi­
ple" proposals for a more effective exchange of weather information, bet­
ter air transport facilities, and creation of a base in the Ukraine for the
34 W ar Department Operations Division Policy Committee, “Weekly Strategic Re­
sume,“ January 23, 1943, quoted in Matloff, Strategic Planning, 1943-44, p. 282;
Marshall to Roosevelt, March 31, 1944, ibid., p. 497. For the Washington reaction to
Standley’s statement, see Sherwood, Roosevelt and Hopkins, pp. 705—6; Israel, ed.,
Long Diary, p. 300; and Cox Daily Calendar, March 9, 1943, Cox MSS. Negotiations
on the Third Lend-Lease Protocol are covered in Matloff, Strategic Planning,
1943-44, pp. 282-83; and PR: 1943, III, 737-81. See also Deane, The Strange Alli­
ance, pp. 89—91; Richard M. Leighton and Robert W. Coakley, Global Logistics and
Strategy, 1943—1943, pp. 671, 685—86; Matloff, Strategic Planning, 1943—44, p. 498;
FR: 1944, IV, 1035-36, 1055-58; Herring, “Lend-Lease to Russia,” pp. 95-97.
35 Matloff, Strategic Planning, 1943—44, pp. 289—91; Deane, The Strange Alliance,
pp. 47—48.
84 Cooperating fo r Victory

refueling, rearming, and repair of American bombers operating over

Nazi-occupied Europe. But Deane soon discovered that agreement “in
principle” meant little— negotiations on putting these proposals into
effect did not begin until February, 1944, and then only after continuous
pressure from the Americans. Military collaboration never worked well.
The Russians showed great reluctance to let United States pilots fly over
Soviet territory. German bombers quickly located the joint Russian-
American air base and seriously damaged it. Although Moscow did ar­
range for the “escape” of a group of American airmen interned in the
Soviet Union after bombing Japan, efforts to secure proper treatment for
United States prisoners-of-war liberated by the advancing Red Army
proved unavailing. Attempts to establish air bases in Siberia for use
against Japan also failed.36
By the end of 1944, Deane had developed serious reservations regard­
ing the possibility of cooperation with Moscow. In a long letter to Gen­
eral Marshall, he complained:
I have sat at innumerable Russian banquets and become gradually nauseated
by Russian food, vodka, and protestations of friendship. Each person high in
public life proposes a toast a litde sweeter than the preceding on Soviet-Brit-
ish-American friendship. It is amazing how these toasts go down past the
tongues in the cheeks. After the banquets we send the Soviets another thou­
sand airplanes, and they approve a visa that has been hanging fire for
months. W e then scratch our heads to see what other gifts we can send, and
they scratch theirs to see what else they can ask for.

Unconditional aid to the Russians made sense when they were fighting
for survival, Deane argued, but “they are no longer back on their heels;
. . . if there’s one thing they have plenty of, it’s self-confidence. The sit­
uation has changed, but our policy has not.” The Russians
simply cannot understand giving without taking, and as a result even our
giving is viewed with suspicion. Gratitude cannot be banked in the Soviet

36 Deane, The Strange Alliance, pp. 20—21, 47—48, 55, 59—63, 107—25, 182—201.
See also, on shuttle-bombing, Madoff, Strategic Planning, 1943—44, pp. 498—500; and
on prisoners-of-war, Sdmson Diary, March 2 and 16, 1945, Stimson MSS. The Rus­
sians did make some effort to exchange “intelligence'’ information with the Ameri­
cans. Deane tells of being informed in great secrecy by an NKVD agent that an
American engineer working in the Baku oil fields had been overheard to describe Roo­
sevelt as a “son of a bitch who should be taken out and shot.’’ Deane “thanked them
profusely and said I certainly would see that corrective action was taken.’’ {The
Strange Alliance, p. 59.)
Cooperating fo r Victory 85

Union. Each transaction is complete in itself without regard to past favors.

The party of the second part is either a shrewd trader to be admired or a
sucker to be despised. . . . In short, we are in the position of being at the
same time the givers and the supplicants. This is neither dignified nor
healthy for U.S. prestige.

D eane recommended allowing the Soviet U nion only such aid as could
be shown to be vital to the w ar effort. Everything else should be fur­
nished on a quid p ro quo basis. If Am erican requests for cooperation
were left unanswered after a reasonable length o f tim e, the U nited States
should act on its own, simply inform ing the. Russians o f w hat it was
going to do. D eane's letter impressed M arshall and Secretary o f W ar
Stim son sufficiently for them to send it to President Roosevelt, w ith the
inform ation th at H arrim an also had endorsed its contents . 3 7
Other officials experienced in dealing with the Russians had already
expressed similar judgments. Standley, Harriman s predecessor in Mos­
cow, had warned Roosevelt in March, 1943, that the policy “of continu­
ing to accede freely to their requests . . . seems to arouse suspicion of
our motives in the Oriental Russian mind rather than to build confi­
dence." William C. Bullitt, another former ambassador, urged Roosevelt
early in 1943 to use “the old technique of the donkey, the carrot, and
the club . . . to make Stalin move in the direction in which we want
him to move." Bullitt's “carrot” was the prospect of American aid for
Russian reconstruction; his “club” was the possibility of denying that aid
and restricting lend-lease shipments. Bullitt had lost much of his influ­
ence by this time, but subordinate Foreign Service officers who had
served with him in Moscow in the 1930s still occupied important posi­
tions in the State Department, from which they pressed for a tougher ne­
gotiating posture with the Russians. George F. Kennan had never con­
sidered the USSR a proper ally for the United States, and argued that
aid should be sent to Russia only to the extent that it promoted Ameri­
can self-interest. Loy W. Henderson warned in the summer of 1943 that
“if we show the slightest weakness and equivocation . . . the Soviet
Government will at once bring tremendous pressure on us and in the
end our relations will be more unfavorably affected than they would be
if we display firmness at the outset.” 38
37 Stimson to Roosevelt, January 3, 1945, enclosing Deane to Marshall, December
2, 1944, FR: Yalta, pp. 447-49.
38 Standley to Roosevelt, Hull, and Welles, March 10, 1943, FR: 1943, III, 510;
86 Cooperating fo r Victory

Harriman himself had gone to Moscow late in 1943 with a feeling of

optimism regarding the possibilities of postwar Soviet-American coopera­
tion. By the summer of 1944, however, the difficulties of dealing with
the Russians on a day-to-day basis had convinced him that Roosevelt’s
policy of unconditional aid would have to be changed. Soviet authorities
had “misinterpreted our generous attitude toward them as a sign of
weakness,” Harriman warned Harry Hopkins; “the time has come when
we must make clear what we expect of them as the price of our good
will.” From now on, the Ambassador advised the State Department, the
United States should cooperate with and support the Russians wherever
possible, but if disagreements arose Washington should make it clear
that it would not back down.39
These criticisms of his Russian policy appear to have had an effect on
the President. By early 1945 he seems to have accepted Harriman’s view
that economic aid for postwar Russian reconstruction should be withheld
until Moscow adopted a more cooperative attitude in the political
sphere.40 Even more significantly, Roosevelt had decided by this time
not to tell the Russians of the highly secret Anglo-American project to
develop the atomic bomb.
During the summer of 1944, Dr. Vannevar Bush, director of the Of­
fice of Scientific Research and Development, and Dr. James B. Conant,
president of Harvard University and chairman of the National Research
Council, had become concerned that the Soviet Union’s continued exclu­
sion from the bomb project might damage postwar relations with that
country. Bush warned Secretary of War Stimson that any American at­
tempt to monopolize the bomb after the war would only stimulate a
crash development program in the Soviet Union. Because the scientific
principles applies in building the bomb were no secret, the Russians
would almost surely succeed in this effort, touching off a dangerous ar­
maments race. In September, Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter
Bullitt to Roosevelt, January 29, 1943, Roosevelt MSS, PSF: “Bullitt’*; Kennan, Mem­
oirs, pp. 57, 133-34; Henderson to Ray Atherton, June 11, 1943, FR: 1943, III, 544.
For background on the training of Russian experts in the Foreign Service, see Kennan,
Memoirs, pp. 61—62, 68—70, 84; and Maddux, “American Relations with the Soviet
Union, 1933-1941,“ pp. 134-40.
39 Harriman to Hopkins, September 10, 1944, FR: 1944, IV, 989; and Hull, Sep­
tember 20, 1944, ibid., p. 997. For Harriman’s earlier feeling of optimism, see his
messages to Roosevelt of July 5 and November 4, 1943, FR: Tehran, pp. 15, 152—55.
40 On this point, see chapter 6.
Cooperating fo r Victory 87

sent Roosevelt a memorandum from the Danish physicist Niels Bohr

which strongly advocated bringing, the Russians in on the secret while
they were still allies. Roosevelt seemed impressed enough with Bohr’s ar­
gument to send the scientist to see Churchill, who gruffly dismissed the -
idea. Upon Bohr’s return, however, the President intimated that, despite
the Prime Minister’s attitude, he would be willing to consider approach­
ing Stalin on the subject.41
But when Churchill joined the President at Hyde Park following the
Quebec Conference later that month, the two men signed a secret agree­
ment explicitly rejecting the idea that “the world” should be told about
the bomb before its use. The memorandum further stated: “Enquiries
should be made regarding the activities of Professor Bohr and steps
taken to ensure that he is responsible for no leakage of information par­
ticularly to the Russians.” Stimson told Roosevelt on the last day of
1944 that, although troubled by the possible repercussions, he did not
favor telling the Russians about the bomb “until we were sure to get a
real quid pro quo from our frankness.” Roosevelt apparently agreed, for
this policy remained in force up to the time of his death.42
It seems likely that the difficulties of dealing with Moscow on small
matters, which Standley, Harriman, Deane, and other American officials
in the Soviet Union complained so vigorously about, contributed at least
in part to Roosevelt’s decision to be less than candid with his Russian
ally on the very big matter of the atomic bomb. The almost unanimous
support for a quid pro quo policy from such experts “in the field” must
have caused the President to wonder whether his plan to win Stalin’s
trust through a program of unconditional aid had not failed. And what-
41 Richard G. Hewlett and Oscar E. Anderson, Jr., A History o f the United States
Atomic Energy Commission: The New World, 1939—1946, pp. 325—28; Frankfurter
to Roosevelt, September 8, 1944, in Max Freedman, ed., Roosevelt and Frankfurter:
Their Correspondence, 1928—1945, pp. 728—36; Burns, Roosevelt: The Soldier o f
Freedom, pp. 455—58.
42 Roosevelt-Churchill agreement of September 19, 1944, quoted in Margaret Gow-
ing, Britain and Atomic Energy, 1939—1945, p. 447; Stimson Diary, December 31,
1944, Stimson MSS. Bush broached the subject to the Secretary of War again after the
Yalta Conference early in 1945, but Stimson remained dubious: “I am inclined to
tread softly and to hold off conferences on the subject until we have some much more
tangible ‘fruits of repentance’ from the Russians.” {Ibid., February 13, 1945.) There is
evidence that, during the last month of his life, F.D.R. was reconsidering his decision
not to tell the Russians about the bomb. See J. W. Pickersgill and D. W . Forster, The
Mackenzie King Record, 1944—1945, pp. 326—27.
88 Cooperating fo r Victory

ever their effect on Roosevelt himself, it is clear th at H arrim an and his

Moscow colleagues exerted a strong influence on the late President's suc­
cessor when H arry S. Trum an turned to them for advice on how to han­
dle the Russians . 4 3

IV
Stalin’s lack of trust in his Western allies manifested itself with particu­
lar vividness in connection with the surrender of Germany and its
satellites. Despite the approach of victory, the Soviet leader seemed un­
able to free himself from the fear that his capitalist associates might yet
make common cause with Germany in a joint crusade against Bolshe­
vism. Even if London and Washington refused such a deal, Hitler might
achieve a similar effect by letting Anglo-American troops advance into
Germany while he devoted all his efforts to holding the Russians back.
The reluctance of Roosevelt and Churchill to absorb heavy casualties
probably made the second possibility seem especially real from Moscow’s
point of view. Accordingly, Stalin watched with a wary eye as Allied
military successes brought attempts, first by Hitler’s satellites, then by
Germany itself, to end the war.
Stalin’s fears surfaced initially in the summer of 1943, when Italy be­
came the first member of the Axis to seek peace. Shortly after the fall of
Mussolini in July, the famous Soviet author, Ilya Ehrenburg, cornered
Associated Press correspondent Henry Cassidy in Moscow and, presum­
ably acting on instructions, vigorously criticized the Americans and Brit­
ish for failing to consult the Russians on the Italian situation. The Sovi­
ets had understood the necessity of dealing with Admiral Darlan,
Ehrenburg said, but negotiating with Badoglio was too much. Did this
mean that London and Washington would deal with Goering when the
time came? When Cassidy responded by bringing up Moscow’s recent
creation of the Free Germany Committee, Ehrenburg observed cynically
that two could play at the game of negotiating with the enemy.44
W estern officials recognized clearly enough the im portance o f keeping
Moscow informed. O n the day after M ussolini fell, British Foreign Secre-
43 See chapter 7.
44 Standley to Roosevelt and Hull, July 30, 1943, FR: 1943, III, 555—56.
Cooperating fo r Victory 89

tary Anthony Eden reminded Ambassador John G. Winant that Russia

would have to be consulted in dealing with the Italians. Winant needed
no prompting. “When the tide turns and the Russian armies are able to
advance,” he pointed out to the State Department, “we might well want
to influence their terms of capitulation and occupancy in Allied and
enemy territory.” Ambassador Standley, concerned by Ehrenburg’s bitter
remarks, also strongly recommended establishing some mechanism for
advising the Russians of Italian developments. State Department officials
agreed, and early in August asked Standley to tell the Russians that they
would be kept folly abreast of events in Italy and that suggestions or in­
quiries from them would be welcome.45
It soon became clear, however, that the Russians wanted more than
just information— they wanted a role in running the occupation of
Italy. Using a garbled British telegram on Italian surrender terms as an
excuse, Stalin late in August complained that the information he had re­
ceived on negotiations with Badoglio had been “absolutely inadequate.”
The Americans and British had been treating the Russians “as a passive
third observer”; it was “impossible to tolerate such [a] situation any
longer.” The time had come, Stalin asserted, to establish a “military-po­
litical commission,” composed of representatives from all three major al­
lies, for the purpose of “considering the questions concerning the nego­
tiations with the different Governments dissociating themselves from
Germany.” 46
Roosevelt and Churchill worried that creation of such a commission
would introduce unnecessary complications into an already tangled mili­
tary situation. Could the Russians not simply send a representative to Ei­
senhower’s headquarters, the President asked early in September. Stalin
replied brusquely that this would “by no means” substitute for the mili­
tary-political commission, "which is necessary for directing on the spot

45 W inant to Hull, July 26, 1943, FR: 1943, II, 335; Standley to Roosevelt and
Hull, July 30, 1943, FR: 1943, III, 555-56; Hull to Winant, August 1, 1943, FR:
1943, II, 340; Hull to Standley, August 3, 1943, ibid., pp. 344—45. See also the com­
ments of the British ambassador to the Soviet Union, Sir Archibald Clark Kerr, on the
importance of inter-AUied consultation, reported in Maxwell M. Hamilton to Hull,
August 8, 1943, ibid., pp. 347—48.
^ S talin to Roosevelt and Churchill, August 22 and 24, FR: 1943, II, 353—54, I,
783. For the matter of the garbled telegram, see Standley to Hull, August 25, 1943,
FR: 1943, II, 354.
90 Cooperating fo r Victory

the negotiations with Italy. . . . Much time has passed, but nothing is
done.” Faced with this virtual ultimatum, the Anglo-American leaders
reluctantly agreed to establish the commission, with headquarters to be
located in Algiers.47
The Western allies quickly demonstrated, however, that they envis­
aged a far narrower role for the commission than did the Russians. The
group would receive fall information on negotiations with defeated ene­
mies, Roosevelt told Stalin, but it would not have plenary powers. In his
instructions to General Eisenhower, the President emphasized that the
commission would operate “under the Allied Commander in Chief.” The
Russians protested this interpretation, but Roosevelt held firm. Churchill
concurred, arguing that “we cannot be put in a position where our two
armies are doing all the fighting but Russians have a veto and must be
consulted on any minor violation of the armistice terms.” Stalin appar­
ently attached considerable importance to the military-political commis­
sion, naming as his delegate Assistant Commissar of Foreign Affairs An­
drei Vishinsky. Roosevelt indicated the significance with which he
regarded the new agency by designating as United States representative
Edwin C. Wilson, former ambassador to Panama.48
American officials realized that the decision to minimize Moscow’s
role in the occupation of Italy might give the Russians a convenient ex­
cuse later on to restrict Anglo-American activities in Rumania, Bulgaria,
and Hungary. But Roosevelt did not expect the Russians to allow their
allies much influence in this area whatever happened in Italy. Eastern
Europe would simply have to get used to Russian domination, he told
Archbishop Francis Spellman in September, 1943. Early in October, he
reminded Churchill that the occupation of Italy would “set the prece­
dent for all such future activities in the war.” When the Red Army en­
tered Rumania early in 1944, the Joint Chiefs of Staff noted that it was
47 Roosevelt to Stalin, September 6, 1943, FR: 1943, I, 784; Stalin to Roosevelt,
September 8, 1943, ibid., p. 785; Roosevelt to Stalin, September 10, 1943, ibid.
48 Roosevelt to Stalin, September 10, 1943, FR: 1943, I, 785; Stalin to Roosevelt,
September 12, 1943, ibid., p. 786; Roosevelt to Eisenhower, September 22, 1943, FR:
1943, II, 374; Molotov to Hamilton, September 26, 1943, ibid., pp. 377—78; Adolf
A. Berle to Winant, September 28, 1943, FR: 1943, I, 790. Churchills comment is
quoted in an aide-mémoire from the British Embassy to the State Department, October
11, 1943, FR: 1943, II, 385—86. See also Leo Pasvolsky's minutes of a conference be­
tween Roosevelt, Hull, and other State Department officials, October 5, 1943, FR:
1943, I, 541.
Cooperating fo r Victory 91

“only natural and to be expected” that the Russians would handle the
surrender negotiations, since only their forces were on the scene:
The present Rumanian situation is analogous to the Italian situation at the
time of her surrender to the British and ourselves. Since Russian participa­
tion in Italian operations was impracticable, the western Allies handled the
matter of Italian surrender . . . and Russian participation in the Italian situ­
ation has been limited to representation on the Allied Control Commission.
Secretary of State Hull noted on March 30 that, in view of the Italian
precedent, it seemed logical to accord the Russians prime responsibil­
ity for working out armistice terms for Rumania, Hungary, and Bul­
garia.49
Subsequent State Department opposition to Churchiirs suggestion
that Moscow be given a dominant role in these three countries in return
for recognition of British interests in Greece, Yugoslavia, and Hungary
related not to armistice negotiations or military occupation but to the
fear that specifically assigned areas of responsibility might harden into
permanent spheres of influence. The distinction between wartime and
postwar arrangements was a fine one, since provisional governments set
up under military occupation would almost certainly influence political
developments in the Balkans after Germany’s surrender. Roosevelt
hoped that these two matters could be kept separate, however, and ac­
quiesced in Churchill’s deal with the Russians on the condition that it
not prejudice the final peace settlement.50
49 Spellman memorandum of conversation with Roosevelt, September 3, 1943,
printed in Gannon, The Cardinal Spellman Story, pp. 223—24; Roosevelt to Churchill,
October 4, 1943, FR: 1943, II, 383; Leahy to Hull, March 28, 1944, FR: 1944t IV,
161; Hull to Lincoln MacVeagh, March 30, 1944, ibid,, p. 164. Several historians
have viewed the Italian precedent as an explanation for subsequent Soviet behavior in
Eastern Europe. See, for example, McNeill, America, Britain, and Russia, p. 310;
Kolko, The Politics o f War, pp. 39, 50—52, 128, 130—31; and John Bagguley, ‘T he
World W ar and the Cold W ar/' in David Horowitz, ed.. Containment and Revolu­
tion, pp. 97—104. Given the long-standing Soviet determination to control Eastern Eu­
rope, however, it seems highly unlikely that the Russians would have given their
Western allies any significant role in the occupation of former German satellites there,
even if London and Washington had met Moscow’s wishes with regard to Italy. For
Soviet ambitions in Eastern Europe, see chapters 1 and 5.
50 Churchill, Triumph and Tragedy, pp. 61—65, 196—97; Hull, Memoirs, II,
1452—53; Roosevelt to Harriman, enclosing a message to Stalin, October 4, 1944, FR:
Yalta, pp. 6—7; Roosevelt to Churchill, October 4, 1944, ibid., p. 7; Yalta Briefing
Book Paper, “American Policy Toward Spheres of Influence/' undated, ibid,, pp.
92 Cooperating fo r Victory

The one enemy whose surrender all three allies expected to receive to­
gether was, of course, Germany. As representatives from the collapsing
Reich began making peace overtures early in 1945, Stalin's almost fian-
tic reaction showed that, despite creation of the second front and all of
Roosevelt's efforts at personal diplomacy, Russian-American relations
still had not been placed on a basis of mutual trust. Even at this late
date, the Soviet leader apparently still worried that his capitalist allies
might make a deal with Hitler.
Early in March, 1945, Office of Strategic Services agents in Switzer­
land informed Washington that General Karl Wolff, a high-ranking S.S.
officer, had arrived in Berne to discuss the possible surrender of German
forces in northern Italy. American officials notified Moscow of this
within two days. The Russians responded by requesting that Soviet offi­
cers be sent to observe the negotiations, but after due consideration the
Joint Chiefs of Staff advised against accepting this proposal. This .was
purely a military surrender in the field, the Joint Chiefs argued, and the
Russians would never have allowed American representatives to observe
comparable discussions on the eastern front. To bring the Russians in
would introduce “into what is almost entirely a military matter an un­
avoidable political element.” President Roosevelt agreed, fearing that the
presence of Soviet officers might affect the willingness of the Germans to
surrender. On March 15, Ambassador Harriman informed the Russians
that their representatives could sit in on the formal surrender negotia­
tions at Allied Headquarters in Italy, but not on the preliminary talks at
Berne.51
Moscow reacted immediately and violently. The Russians found the
American attitude “utterly unexpected and incomprehensible,” Molotov
told Harriman, and demanded that negotiations with the Germans at
Berne be broken off. Roosevelt responded that these talks were solely for
the purpose of establishing contact— no surrender would be arranged
without Soviet participation. Molotov retorted ominously that “it is not
103—6. Herbert Feis argues that by October, 1944, Roosevelt had privately come to
agree with Churchill regarding the need for a division of spheres of influence in East­
ern Europe. {Churchill, Roosevelt, Stalin, p. 451.)
51FR: 1945, III, 722—31. For background on the OSS operation in Switzerland and
northern Italy, see Allen Dulles, The Secret Surrender.
Cooperating fo r Victory 93

a question of incorrect understanding of the objectives of this contact or

misunderstanding— it is something worse.” The Americans and the
British had been negotiating with the German High Command “behind
the back of the Soviet Government which has been carrying on the
main burden of the war against Germany.” Roosevelt replied directly to
Stalin on March 24, assuring him that “in such a surrender of enemy
forces in the field, there can be no political implications whatever and
no violations of our agreed principle of unconditional surrender.” Stalin’s
reply, on the 29th, charged that the Germans had already used the dis­
cussions with the Anglo-Americans to shift three additional divisions
from northern Italy to the Russian front. Five days later he made the
startling accusation that
the negotiations . . . have ended in an agreement with the Germans, on the
basis of which the German commander on the Western front— Marshal
Kesselring, has agreed to open the front and permit the Anglo-American
troops to advance to the East, and the Anglo-Americans have promised in
return to ease for the Germans the peace terms.
The Russians, Stalin concluded, would never have done such a thing.
Roosevelt responded sharply on April 4: “Frankly I cannot avoid a feel­
ing of bitter resentment toward your informers, whoever they are, for
such vile misrepresentations of my actions or those of my trusted
subordinates.” 52
Negotiations with the Germans in Italy failed to bear fruit immedi­
ately, however, and quickly receded into the background as the other
events of early April— the invasion of Germany, the Polish crisis, and
Roosevelt’s death— crowded in on policy-makers. But Soviet behavior
had left American officials gravely worried. Admiral William D. Leahy,
Chief of Staff to the Commander in Chief, saw in the Berne incident “a
clear demonstration of the dangerous undesirability of having unneces­
sary allies in war.” To Ambassador Harriman, the affair suggested that
the Russians intended “to dominate all matters relating to Germany in
ways not yet fully disclosed.” Secretary of War Stimson noted that Mos­
cow’s “quarrelsome” reaction “indicated a spirit in Russia which bodes
evil in the coming difficulties of the postwar scene.” Soviet accusations of
52 FR: 1945, III, 731—46. General Marshall and Admiral Leahy drafted Roosevelt’s
April 4 reply. (Leahy, 1 Was There, pp. 391-92.)
94 Cooperating fo r Victory

Anglo-American collaboration with Germany revealed to Stimson “an

astonishing situation in Stalin's mind and the minds of his staff.” 53
The Berne episode also worried Roosevelt, but he was determined not
to let it wreck the Soviet-American partnership. On the day he died, he
drafted a telegram to Stalin noting that “the Berne incident . . . now
appears to have faded into the past without having accomplished any
useful purpose,” and that “mutual distrust and minor misunderstand­
ings” of this type should not be allowed to happen in the future. Before
presenting this message to Stalin, Harriman wired from Moscow asking
the President if he did not want to eliminate the word “minor” in de­
scribing the quarrel, which to Harriman hardly seemed “minor” at all.
Roosevelt replied that the message should be delivered as written, “as it
is my desire to consider the Berne misunderstanding a minor inci­
dent.” 54
But, in a sense, Harriman was right. The balefully suspicious manner
in which Stalin reacted to news of the Berne discussions revealed as
nothing else had the failure of Roosevelt's wartime policy toward the So­
viet Union. The President had sought to make Stalin trust him, feeling
that only in this way could postwar Soviet-American cooperation be as­
sured. To this end, he had furnished the Russians with lend-lease sup­
plies on an unconditional basis, had twice traveled halfway around the
world to meet with the Soviet leader, and had incurred considerable po­
litical risk at home in order to satisfy Moscow's postwar territorial de­
mands.55 Yet Roosevelt refused to pay the one price which might, but
only might, have convinced Stalin of his sincerity— the massive
American casualties which would have been necessary to establish an
early second front. There were limits to how far even Roosevelt could go
in trying to overcome Soviet suspicion. While the bankruptcy of his pol­
icy of openhandedness was not fully apparent at the time of his death,
events such as Berne make it seem unlikely that Roosevelt, had he lived,
would have continued it much longer.
53 Leahy, / Was There, p. 336; Harriman to Stettinius, March 17, 1945, FR: 1945,
III, 734; Sdmson Diary, March 17 and April 4, 1945, Stimson MSS. See also Deane,
The Strange Alliance, pp. 165—66.
54 FR: 1945, III, 756—57. 55 On this point, see chapter 5.
 versus

Moscow's nervousness over the problem of surrender made it clear that

agreement on how to treat defeated enemies would be a major prerequi­
site for postwar inter-Allied cooperation. Since the United States had
done most of the fighting against Japan, it could expect a decisive role
in shaping occupation policies for that country. Hitler's European satel­
lites presented no serious threat to future peace; moreover, by the end of
1944 the Big Three had tacitly agreed that Italy would fall within an
Anglo-American sphere of influence, while the Soviet Union would as­
sume responsibility for Finland, Rumania, Bulgaria, and Hungary. Ger­
many, however, posed a far more difficult problem: it was the only
enemy against which all three allies had fought in roughly equal
proportion,1 and in which each was determined to exert its influence to
prevent still another outburst of aggression which might lead to a third
world war.
The Big Three shared an obvious interest in keeping Germany under
control, but unless they could agree before the end of the fighting on
how to do this, disputes among the victors would almost certainly arise.
1 The fact that the Soviet Union's casualties far exceeded those of Great Britain and
the United States should not be allowed to obscure the fact that Britain fought Ger­
many alone from June, 1940, to June, 1941, or that American industry, through lend-
lease, provided much of the materiel used to bring about Germany’s defeat.
96 Repression versus Rehabilitation

Neither the Russians nor the Anglo-Americans had ever completely

overcome their fears of a separate peace; both would tend to regard any
conflicts over occupation policy as evidence that former allies were con­
spiring with a former foe. Even if such suspicions did not develop on
their own, the absence of a common program would place the Germans
in an excellent position to play one occupying power off against the
other. Efforts to work our tripartite policies for Germany failed, how­
ever, largely because of conflict and confusion within the United States
government.
The conflict revolved around whether policies of repression or rehabil­
itation would best keep Germany pacified. Advocates of repression, in­
cluding the Treasury Department and, somewhat less firmly, President
Roosevelt, saw aggressive characteristics in all Germans and argued that
Hitler had accurately reflected these tendencies. The Versailles treaty
had not kept the peace because it had been too lenient— after World
War II the victors would have to treat Germany more severely so that
successors to Hitler could not arise. Proponents of rehabilitation, cen­
tered chiefly in the State Department, likewise attributed the rise of Hit­
ler to the Versailles settlement but blamed the pact’s harshness, not its
generosity. The treaty’s punitive economic provisions and war guilt
clause, they insisted, had led to the social and economic situation which
bred Nazism. Security from future Hitlers could come only by reforming
conditions within Germany so that totalitarianism would have no ap­
peal. For this, a moderate peace would be necessary.2
Confusion, arising out of failure to coordinate wartime strategy with
postwar political objectives, kept the Roosevelt Administration from
choosing between these two approaches until it was too late. The Presi­
dent and his military advisers, concerned almost exclusively with win­
ning the war, saw no need to consider plans for the occupation of de­
feated enemies until the end of the fighting was near. State Department
officials, desperately seeking policy guidance in this field, found the mili­
tary obstructive, the President preoccupied, and often gave up in frustra-
2 For summaries of these two points of view, together with descriptions of their
British and Russian counterparts, see John L. Snell, Wartime Origins o f the East-West
Dilemma over Germany, chapter 1. See also Walter L. Dorn, “The Debate over Amer­
ican Occupation Policy in Germany in 1944—1945,” Political Science Quarterly,
LXXII (December, 1957), 484-85.
Repression versus Rehabilitation 97

tion. When the approach of victory made it impossible to ignore occupa­

tion policy much longer, the government moved in two directions at
once. The W ar Department, thinking solely of the short-range problem
of military government, came out in favor of repression as a matter of
administrative convenience. The State Department, worried about long-
range political and economic problems in Europe, continued to insist
upon rehabilitation. Roosevelt lent comfort to both sides at different
times, leaving the controversy unresolved at his death. The absence of a
clear-cut American position precluded meaningful discussions with Great
Britain and the Soviet Union prior to the end of the war, thus making
divergent occupation policies in Germany virtually inevitable.

I
The debate over Germany within the Roosevelt Administration began
in the spring of 1943 when British Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden
came to Washington to discuss postwar issues. During the ensuing talks,
Harry Hopkins expressed concern that the Allies had not yet reached an
understanding “as to which armies would be where and what kind of
administration should be developed.” Hopkins worried that unless such
agreements were made, “one of two things would happen— either
Germany will go Communist or [an] out and out anarchic state would
set in.” The State Department, he thought, should formulate a plan in
collaboration with the British, and then seek the approval of the Rus­
sians. Roosevelt agreed, instructing Hull to begin consultations with the
War Department, London, and eventually Moscow on “the question of
what our plan is to be in Germany and Italy during the first few months
after Germany’s collapse.” 3
T he State D epartm ent’s Advisory Com m ittee on Postw ar Foreign Pol­
icy had already initiated studies on this question, and by the end o f the
summ er was ready w ith its first recomm endations. T he best way to
guard against future aggression, the departm ent argued, would be to en-
3 Hopkins memorandum, conversation with Roosevelt and Hull, March 17, 1943,
FR: 1943, III, 26; Roosevelt to Hull, March 23, 1943, ibid., p. 36. For the March,
1943, discussions with Eden see ibid., pp. 1—48, and Eden, The Reckoning, pp.
430-41.
98 Repression versus Rehabilitation

courage the emergence of democratic institutions inside Germany. For

such a policy to succeed, the peace settlement would have to be designed
to provoke “a minimum of bitterness” from the German people. Occupa­
tion controls should be kept “to the minimum in number and in severity
which will be compatible with security.” The German economy would
have to be allowed to revive to the point that it could provide “a tolera­
ble standard of living” for the German people. Finally, the other occupy­
ing powers would have to agree on similar policies for their zones. If
friction developed among the Russians, British, and Americans, Ger­
many would be in a position to shift the balance of power from one side
to another— a situation which could have disastrous consequences for
future peace. Hence, the department concluded, Washington should
work for a generous peace which would foster the growth of democracy
inside the defeated Reich.4
From this it followed logically that the dismemberment of Germany
would be self-defeating. Forcible partition, State Department planners
believed, would contribute nothing to security: economic and military
disarmament would do that. It would cause resentment among the Ger­
man people, however, and would necessitate the imposition of elaborate
controls to prevent surreptitious attempts at reunification. Moreover, dis­
memberment might lead to the formation of spheres of influence, possi­
bly provoking conflicts among the victors. Imposed partition, one depart­
ment adviser told Hull, “would be little short of a disaster both for
Germany and for us.” 5
The State Department's plans for a moderate peace also precluded the
use of reparations for punitive purposes. Department officials expected
some of the victors, especially the Soviet Union, to demand extensive
goods and services from Germany for use in reconstructing their war-
damaged economies. Yet Hull's advisers feared that the indiscriminate
4 Recommendation by the State Department Interdivisional Country Committee on
Germany, September 23, 1943, printed in Notter, Postwar Foreign Policy Preparation,
p. 559.
5 Ibid., p. 558; draft by Harley Notter of a Hull memorandum to Roosevelt, Sep­
tember, 1943, Hull MSS, Box 52, Folder 159. One State Department official who did
support dismemberment was Undersecretary of State Sumner Welles, but his influence
ceased abruptly with his resignation from the department in August, 1943. For
Welles’s views, see his memorandum of a conversation with Anthony Eden and Lord
Halifax on March 16, 1943, FR: 1943, III, 19—22; and his The Time for Decision,
pp. 336—61.
Repression versus Rehabilitation 99

extraction of reparations would wreck what remained of the German

economy, thereby ruining efforts to promote democratic institutions and
possibly burdening the United States with a massive relief operation.
Furthermore, economic collapse in Germany might threaten the recov­
ery of Europe as a whole, and thus endanger the department’s goal of re­
viving a multilateral system of world trade. “It is to the long-range in­
terest of the United States that Germany be prosperous,” the department
concluded, “but that, at the same time, [the] German economy should
not again be directed to war-like purposes.” 6
Ambiguities existed in the State Department’s proposal. Its success
would depend upon agreement by other occupying powers to implement
similar policies, for democratic institutions in one zone would do little
good if totalitarianism took root again in the others. Yet the Russians
had thus far shown little willingness to tolerate democracy in areas
under their control, and seemed unlikely to endorse any occupation plan
which did not allow them a substantial volume of reparations.7 The
State Department still had to decide how much of Germany’s industrial
plant could be dismantled to prevent rearmament and provide repara­
tions without causing economic chaos. But by the end of 1943 the de­
partment had accomplished more toward planning the occupation of
Germany than had any other agency of government. As was so often the
case in the Roosevelt Administration, however, the Chief Executive’s
grant of authority in this area did not give Hull and his advisers a free
hand. Both the President and the War Department possessed certain
prejudices regarding Germany which from the first undercut State’s ef­
forts to move toward a moderate peace.
Roosevelt’s attitudes toward Germany stemmed largely from personal
experiences in that country. F.D.R. had attended school there as a boy,
acquiring simultaneously knowledge of the language and a strong dis­
taste for German arrogance and militarism: “The talk among us chil­
dren became stronger each year toward an objective— the inevitable
war with France and the building up of the Reich into the greatest
world power. Even then we were taught to have no respect for English-
6 "U.S. Proposal with Regard to Questions of Reparations»” Moscow Conference
Document No. 39, October, 1943, FR: 1943, I, 740—41; Postwar Programs Commit­
tee memorandum» “The Treatment of Germany,” August 5, 1944, FR: 1944, I, 312.
7 On this point, see Harriman to Roosevelt, November 4, 1943, FR: Tehran, p.
154.
100 Repression versus Rehabilitation

men and we were taught that Americans were mere barbarians, most of
whom were millionaires.” In 1919, as assistant secretary of the navy,
Roosevelt returned to the Rhineland, now occupied by United Slates
troops. To his disgust, he found occupation authorities reluctant to fly
the American flag, lest they unduly humiliate the Germans. F.D.R. an­
grily complained to General Pershing, arguing that the Germans had to
be made to understand in no uncertain terms that they had lost the war.8
This determination to bring the fact of defeat home to the German
people became a key element in the policy Roosevelt followed a quarter
of a century later as President.
“After the first World War we tried to achieve a formula for perma­
nent peace, based on magnificent idealism,” Roosevelt told Congress in
1943. “We failed. But, by our failure, we have learned that we cannot
maintain peace at this stage of human development by good intentions
alone.” This time, the victors would have to occupy all of Germany, plus
additional strategic bases throughout the world. To guard against future
aggression, Roosevelt strongly supported the division of Germany into
from three to five states. Prussian militarism had led to the rise of Hit­
ler; partition would make totalitarianism in postwar Germany impossi­
ble. “When Hitler and the Nazis go out, the Prussian military clique
must go with them,” Roosevelt argued; “the war-breeding gangs of mili­
tarists must be rooted out of Germany— and out of Japan— if we
are to have any real assurance of future peace.” 9
T he President’s hopes for peacetim e collaboration w ith the Soviet
U nion did much to shape his policy toward Germany. H arsh occupation
policies, like unconditional surrender, appealed to him in p art because he

8 Snell, Dilemma over Germany, pp. 30—31; Lucius D. Clay, Decision in Germany,
p. 5; Roosevelt to Colonel Arthur Murray, March 4, 1940, Roosevelt MSS, PSF:
‘‘Great Britain: A. Murray"; Frank Freidel, Franklin D. Roosevelt: The Ordeal, p. 13.
“W hen I was eleven in 1893, I think it was, my class was started on the study of
‘Heimatkunde’— geography lessons about the village, then about how to get to neigh­
boring towns and what one would see, and, finally, on how to get all over the Prov­
ince of Hesse-Darmstadt. The following year we were taught all about roads and what
we would see on the way to the French border. I did not take it the third year but I
understand the class was ‘conducted’ to France— all the roads leading to Paris." (Roo­
sevelt to Murray, cited above.)
9 Roosevelt messages to Congress, January 7 and September 17, 1943, FDR: Public
Papers, XII, 33, 391. For Roosevelt’s ideas on partition, see the record of his conversa­
tions with Anthony Eden, March 15 and 22, 1943, FR: 1943, III, 16—17, 36.
Repression versus Rehabilitation 101

felt they would improve Russian-American relations. F.D.R. believed

that Stalin wanted additional territory in Eastern Europe as protection
against a resurgent Germany. Several times the President expressed the
view that if German disarmament could be guaranteed, Soviet interest
in Eastern Europe would wane. Roosevelt told Robert Mutphy in 1944
that the occupation of Germany had to be arranged in such a way as to
convince the Soviet Union of America’s good intentions. Cooperation
with Russia was the most important postwar objective of the United
States, the President emphasized, and Germany would be the proving
ground for that cooperation.10
Roosevelt discussed dismemberment with top State Department offi­
cials in October, 1943, shortly before Secretary Hull’s departure for the
Moscow Foreign Ministers* Conference. Insisting that he knew Germany
better than did the department’s experts, F.D.R. at first accused Hull and
his advisers of exaggerating the undesirable effects of partition, but later
he acknowledged sheepishly that he had not visited Germany for many
years and that dismemberment might not work after all. The President’s
position, though ambivalent, caused Hull to skirt the issue of partition
when he presented the State Department’s plans to his British and Rus­
sian colleagues in Moscow later that month. There had been a tendency
to favor partition “in high quarters in the United States,” Hull said, “but
as the discussions progressed and conflicting and often very convincing
arguments were advanced for and against, there was an increasing dispo­
sition to keep an open mind on this point.” Molotov and Eden agreed
that the question needed further study.11
When the Big Three met at Teheran one month later, however, the
full measure of Stalin’s determination to deal harshly with Germany be­
came apparent. The Soviet leader repeatedly emphasized the need to oc­
cupy strong positions within Germany to prevent rearmament, and at
one point proposed a toast to the “liquidation” of between 50,000 and
10 Memorandum by Sumner Welles of a conversation with Lord Halifax, February
20, 1942, FR: 1942, III, 521; memorandum by Jan Ciechanowski of Roosevelt’s con­
versation with General Wladyslaw Sikorski, March 24, 1942, in Ciechanowski, Defeat
in Victory, p. 100; Robert Murphy, Diplomat among Warriors, p. 227.
11 Hull, Memoirs, II, 1265—66, 1287; Leo Pasvolsky minutes, Roosevelt meeting
with State Department officials, October 5, 1943, FR: 1943, I, 541—43; minutes of the
seventh meeting of the foreign ministers, Moscow, October 25, 1943, ibid., pp.
631-32.
102 Repression versus Rehabilitation

100,000 members of the German officers corps. Roosevelt offered to set­

tle for 49,000, a “joke” which caused Churchill to stalk angrily from the
room. When the President revived his plan for the dismemberment of
Germany, Stalin endorsed it enthusiastically. Churchill expressed reser­
vations, proposing instead the detachment of Prussia from the rest of
Germany, but Stalin refused to go along. Prussians were no different
from other Germans, he argued, they all fought like devils. The Big
Three reached no final agreements, referring the German question to the
newly formed European Advisory Commission, but their discussion did
indicate tentative endorsement of the principle of partition. Characteris­
tically, Roosevelt neglected to inform the State Department of this sig­
nificant development.12
Beyond dismemberment, the President's ideas on Germany remained
vague. In line with his desire to postpone political decisions until after
the war, Roosevelt felt in 1943 that it was simply too early to begin
planning detailed occupation policies. He was open to suggestions, but
would commit himself firmly to nothing. Discussing what to do with
Germany after victory was really a waste of time, the President had told
a press conference in July: “I think it takes people's thoughts off win­
ning the war to talk about things like that now." 13
Military officials carefully avoided involvement in planning the occu­
pation of Germany. "The formulation of long-view political, social and
economic policies is properly the function of civilian agencies of the gov­
ernment," an officer in the Army’s Military Government Division wrote
in 1942; "their ‘implementation,’ during any period of military necessity,
is the function of the military command." Army planners expected their
responsibility for military government in Germany to last only until
order had been restored, possibly no more than a few weeks, after which
the task of occupation would be turned over to civilian authorities ap­
pointed by the United States government. "You are not politicians. . .
but soldiers,” General Eisenhower told a group of Civil Affairs officers
12 Minutes» Roosevelt-Churchill-Stalin meetings of November 28 and December 1,
1943, FR: Tehran, pp. 509—12, 532—33, 553—54, and 600—4. See also Charles Boh-
len’s memoranda of November 28 and December 15, 1943, ibid., pp. 513, 846—47;
Lord Moran, Churchill: The Struggle for Survival, 1940—1965, p. 152; and Blum,
Morgenthau Diaries: Years of War, pp. 340—41.
13 Paul Y. Hammond, "‘Directives for the Occupation of Germany: The Washington
Controversy,” in Harold Stein, ed., American Civil-Military Decisions, p. 324; Roose­
velt press conference, July 13, 1943, Roosevelt MSS, PPF 1-P, Vol. XXII.
Repression versus Rehabilitation 103

under his command shortly before D-Day; “ [your task is] to help us
win the war.” 14
But at the same time, the Army was determined not to allow civilians
to interfere in the operation of military government during the brief pe­
riod when it would be necessary. Civilian meddling in three similar
situations— in Southern states occupied by the Union Army during
the Civil War, in the Philippines following the Spanish-American War,
and in the Rhineland after World War I—had been, in the words of
an Army expert on the subject, “demoralizing, costly, and ludicrous.” Ci­
vilians would play a role in military government—political and eco­
nomic matters could not be completely ignored in dealing with defeated
enemies— but the Army hoped “to forestall their seizing its direction
or control.” 15
The experience of invading and occupying North Africa seemed to
confirm the wisdom of this policy. As early as July, 1942, General Eisen­
hower was complaining about interference from civilian officials, each of
whom “feels that he has a distinct and separate mission in life and never
stops to think that . . . winning the war normally involves also the
Army, Navy, and Air Force.” Late in November, three weeks after the
landings, he wrote to General Marshall: “The sooner I can get rid of all
these questions that are outside the military in scope, the happier I will
be! Sometimes I think I live ten years each week, of which at least nine
are absorbed in political and economic matters.” Shortly thereafter Ei­
senhower described the civilian representatives hovering around his
headquarters as “locusts,” and advocated imposing “a single staff author­
ity over the whole gang.” 16
14 Colonel Jesse I. Miller to Colonel Edward S. Greenbaum, December 21, 1942, in
Harry L. Coles and Albert K. Weinberg, Civil Affairs: Soldiers Become Governors, p.
56; Dorn, “Debate over American Occupation Policy,” p. 487; Forrest C. Pogue, The
Supreme Command, pp. 83—84. See also Coles and Weinberg, Civil Affairs, pp.
19—20, 26. The Army established a School of Military Government at Charlottesville,
Virginia, in the spring of 1942 to train officers for the tasks of military government.
Charges that the school was turning out American gauleiters caused the Army to be­
come especially sensitive to the need to keep this training free from political over­
tones. On this point, see Stimson and Bundy, On Active Service, pp. 553—54; and
Hajo Holborn, American Military Government: Its Organization and Policies, pp.
3-4.
15 Miller to Greenbaum, July 23 and 30, 1942, in Coles and Weinberg, Civil A f­
fairs, pp. 16, 17—18.
16 Eisenhower to General Brehon Somervell, July 27, 1942, Eisenhower Papers, I,
104 Repression versus Rehabilitation

Hoping to avoid the mistakes of North Africa before reaching enemy

territory, the Army in March of 1943 established a Civil Affairs Divi­
sion within the W ar Department to coordinate political and economic
planning as it affected military government. The division was supposed
to refrain from policy-making, which the Army still regarded as a civil­
ian responsibility, but to ensure that the execution of policy during peri­
ods of military government came under Army control. War Department
planners quickly realized, however, that the best way to control the exe­
cution of policy was to impede the formulation of it. The Joint Chiefs of
Staff decided in April that “requirements of secrecy and security'* pre­
cluded consulting civilian agencies about occupation policy prior to
launching military operations. By May, General John Hilldring, director
of the Civil Affairs Division, had informed State Department officials
“that they would have to take second place to the War Department in
questions of military government,” and was working to commit other
government agencies to this principle.17 Resolved on the one hand to
avoid making policy itself, but determined on the other not to let civil­
ians interfere, the Army fell back on the simple practice of evaluating
occupation measures in terms of whether or not they accorded with the
nebulous doctrine of “military necessity/*
But even this non-policy had political and economic implications. N o
one knew for certain how long m ilitary governm ent would last. Occupa­
tion m easures im plem ented solely on the basis o f “m ilitary necessity**
could w ell underm ine long-range plans for the treatm ent o f Germany
being considered in the civilian branches o f the governm ent. Despite its
studied position o f policy neutrality, therefore, the W ar D epartm ent's at­
titudes would significantly affect the m anner in which Americans ad­
m inistered their occupation zone.
The contradictions im plicit in the views o f the State D epartm ent, the
W ar D epartm ent, and the W hite H ouse pointed up the need for closer
423; Eisenhower to Marshall, November 30, 1942, ibid., II, 781; Eisenhower to Major
General George V. Strong, December 4, 1942, ibid., II, 794. See also Coles and
Weinberg, Civil Affairs, pp. 30—31; and Holborn, American Military Government, p.
7.
17 Hammond, “Directives for the Occupation of Germany,“ pp. 320—21; Joint
Chiefs of Staff to Secretaries Stimson and Knox, April 10, 1943, in Coles and Wein­
berg, Civil Affairs, p. 70; minutes. War Department General Council meeting, May
31, 1943, ibid., p. 97; Merle Fainsod, “The Development of American Military Gov­
ernment Policy During World W ar II,“ in Carl J. Friedrich and associates, American
Experiences in Military Government in World War II, p. 31-
Repression versus Rehabilitation 105

coordination between these agencies of government before any definitive

United States recommendations on the treatment of Germany were sub­
mitted to the British and the Russians. No such coordination had taken
place, however, by the end of 1943. The State Department had formu­
lated a comprehensive long-range plan for the occupation of Germany,
but had not yet reconciled it with the attitudes of the President and the
War Department. Roosevelt had informally discussed the German ques­
tion with Churchill and Stalin at Teheran, but had not informed the
State Department of the purport of these conversations. The War De­
partment, preoccupied with “military necessity,” had resolved to consult
civilians on the question of Germany as little as possible. Meanwhile,
plans were under way to establish an Anglo-American-Soviet commis­
sion to work out common policies for the surrender and occupation of
defeated enemies, a development which found the United States govern­
ment seriously unprepared.

II
The G rand Alliance, like other coalitions in world history, was held to­
gether prim arily by hatred for a common enemy. H itler’s defeat would
remove the alliance’s chief reason for existence, raising the question o f
w hether the British, Russians, and Am ericans could overcome inevitable
differences in national interests to continue cooperation in the postw ar
period. Fear on the part o f any one ally that his associates were conspir­
ing w ith his enemies would m ake such collaboration impossible, hence
the need for agreem ent on common policies for the occupation o f G er­
many before the fighting stopped. N either the Big Three nor their for­
eign m inisters had sufficient tim e or energy to resolve such a complex
issue them selves, as their inconclusive talks at Moscow and Teheran had
shown. W ashington’s inadequate integration o f w artim e and postw ar
planning wrecked a prom ising effort to work out occupation policies at
the tertiary level— through the European Advisory Commission.
The EAC evolved from the m ilitary-political commission which Stalin
had pressured his Anglo-Am erican allies into establishing in September,
1943, following the surrender o f Italy . 1 8 D espite their reluctance to give
18 On this matter, see chapter 3.
106 Repression versus Rehabilitation

the Russians a major role in the occupation of that country, the British
saw little reason to postpone consideration of general political issues. Ac­
cordingly, at the Moscow Foreign Ministers’ Conference in October, An­
thony Eden suggested transforming the military-political commission
into an advisory council for Italy and creating a new tripartite European
Advisory Commission, located in London, to handle not only negotia­
tions with defeated enemies but all political matters which the Big
Three chose to refer to it. Eden’s proposal quickly won Soviet approval.
The Americans were less enthusiastic, but Hull warily accepted Eden’s
plan after stipulating that it would not preclude use of regular diplo­
matic channels if these were considered desirable. As finally agreed in
the Moscow Conference protocol, the EAC was assigned the broad task
of “making recommendations to the three Governments upon European
questions connected with the termination of hostilities.” In addition, it
was specified that one of the commission’s first jobs would be to furnish
detailed suggestions on “the terms of surrender to be imposed upon each
of the European states with which any of the three Powers are at war,
and upon the mechanism required to ensure the fulfillment of those
terms.” 19
But the United States quickly moved to restrict the EAC’s role as
much as possible. Secretary of State Hull instructed Ambassador John G.
Winant, American representative on the commission, to avoid discussing
general political questions, limiting his activities instead to drawing up
surrender terms and organizing joint occupation machinery for defeated
enemies. Winant protested this narrow grant of authority, pointing out
that the British wanted the EAC to deal with establishment of control
in all countries, friendly and unfriendly, occupied by the Allies. “If we
present the Russians only with faits accomplis on these subjects, as we
were obliged to do in the case of Italy, we can only expea to learn of
their aaions and policies in Eastern Europe in a similar manner.” Wi-
nant’s complaints evoked no sympathy among Washington officials, most
of whom were motivated, as George F. Kennan later observed, "by a
19 FR: 1943, I, 554, 571-72, 605-8, 706, 710-11, 756-57. For British motives in
proposing establishment of the EAC, see Eden, The Reckoning, pp. 476, 492—93; Sir
Llewellyn Woodward, British Foreign Policy in the Second World War, p. 246»; and
Philip E. Mosely, “The Occupation of Germany: New Light on How the Zones Were
Drawn,” Foreign Affairs, XXVIII (July, 1950), 581.
Repression versus Rehabilitation 107

lively concern lest the new body should at some point and by some
mischance actually do something.” 20
W inant’s instructions reflected the Roosevelt Administration's reluc­
tance to make postwar political commitments before the end of the war.
Late in 1943» the President had emphasized to the Joint Chiefs of Staff
the need to keep the EAC a purely advisory body— to ensure that the
Big Three made all major decisions. Others within the Administration,
remembering 1919, feared that any secret political arrangements made
during the war might provoke a resurgence of isolationism inside the
United States. "If we get the war being run from London,” Secretary of
War Stimson proclaimed, “we will have the United States isolationist
when the end of the war comes.” Assistant Secretary of War John J.
McCloy echoed this sentiment:
On every cracker barrel in every country store in the U.S. there is someone
sitting who is convinced that we get hornswoggled every time we attend a
European conference. European deliberations must be made in the light of
the concepts of the new continent because that continent has now, for better
or for worse, become a determining factor in the struggles of the old one.
W hat may be lost through not moving to London in the way of better and
more accessible records or a greater familiarity with local conditions, will be
made up in a readier assumption of responsibility on the part of the U.S. and
perhaps in a greater obectivity of decision.
Still others, including Secretary of State Hull, worried that if the EAC
took up political questions it would impair the authority of the future
collective security organization. “I believe that you will appreciate the
possible long-term repercussions on American public opinion,” Hull told
Winant, “should the impression be gained that this Commission . . . is
secretly building the new world.” 21
Even with its authority restricted to the surrender and occupation of
defeated enemies, the EAC could have served as a valuable forum for tri­
partite discussions on Germany had Washington cooperated. But inade-
20 Hull to Winant, December 23, 1943, FR: 1943, I, 812; Winant to Hull, January
4 and 6, 1944, FR: 1944, I, 1—3, 10; Kennan, Memoirs, p. 166.
21 Joint Chiefs of Staff minutes, meeting with Roosevelt, November 15, 1943, FR:
Tehran, pp. 197—98; Stimson Diary, October 28, 1943, Stimson MSS; McCloy to
Harry Hopkins, November 25, 1943, FR: Tehran, p. 418; Hull to Winant, January 9,
1944, FR: 1944, I, 12. See also Dorn, “Debate over American Occupation Policy,” p.
488.
108 Repression versus Rehabilitation

quate coordination of wartime and postwar planning created a bureau­

cratic snarl within the Roosevelt Administration which made it virtually
impossible for the American representative on the EAC to take any
action at allv Representatives from the State, War, and Navy depart­
ments had established in December, 1943, a joint body known as the
Working Security Committee to draw up instructions for Winant. Before
these could be sent, however, each representative had to clear them with
his own department, thus giving each agency a veto over what proposals
Winant could make in the EAC. Securing State and Navy Department
clearance created no serious problems. But W ar Department representa­
tives, made up of officers from the Civil Affairs Division, at first refused
to take any part whatever in drafting instructions for Winant, arguing
that the occupation of defeated enemies was purely a military matter.
When, upon receipt of orders from above, CAD officers did agree to par­
ticipate in the Working Security Committee, they seemed reluctant to
approve any policy at all, at one point even vetoing a reply to a tele­
gram from Winant asking when he could expect instructions. Negotiat­
ing with CAD officials, State Department representatives came to feel,
required every bit as much patience as dealing with the Russians them­
selves.22
There were several reasons for this difficulty. Since its formation in
the spring of 1943, the Civil Affairs Division had carefully avoided in­
volving itself in the formulation of occupation policy, hoping to allow
maximum discretion to Army commanders during periods of military
government. Consequently, Division officers required weeks of study be­
fore they could pass judgment on State Department proposals. But this
was not the whole problem. The Joint Chiefs of Staff also had to clear
instructions to W inant before W ar Department representatives on the
Working Security Committee could endorse them. But the Joint Chiefs,
presumably seeking to stay out of policy-making in “political” fields, re­
fused to consider papers which had not received final State Department
approval. The State Department, not wanting to trespass on “military”
matters and hoping to allow W inant negotiating room, submitted only
tentative suggestions which would not become official policy until ap­
proved by the Working Security Committee, and then by the EAC. The
22 Hammond, “Directives for the Occupation of Germany,” pp. 329-30; Mosely,
“Occupation of Germany,” pp. 583—86.
Repression versus Rehabilitation 109

resulting stalemate might have been circumvented had some mechanism

existed for coordinating policy between the civilian and military agen­
cies of government. But efforts to establish such a mechanism had failed
because the Joint Chiefs, for reasons of security, refused to allow civilian
officials access to their deliberations. Since both Roosevelt and the War
Department distrusted the EAC anyway, neither made any serious effort
to resolve the problem. All of this left Winant, in the words of one of
his assistants, “stranded without instructions on the policy that he should
follow, without freedom to propose a policy of his own, and without a
mandate to comment on the policies proposed by other member
countries.” 23
The chaotic manner in which the United States government finally
arrived at a policy on German occupation zones illustrated vividly the
consequences of this failure of coordination. Late in 1943 the State De­
partment submitted to the Working Security Committee a plan to draw
the zones in such a way that all three occupying powers would have ac­
cess to Berlin. CAD representatives on the committee refused to consider
this proposal, arguing that zonal boundaries were military matters, and
would probably be determined by the location of each nation’s armies at
the end of hostilities. Early in 1944, the British placed before the EAC a
plan to divide Germany into three zones, with the Russians in the east,
the Americans in the southwest, and the British in the northwest. Berlin
was to be an area under tripartite responsibility lying deep within the
Soviet zone. The Russians quickly indicated their approval. Winant was
without instructions, however, and could only report these developments
to Washington with the comment that he “would appreciate being in­
formed as to our present position on this question.” 24
23 Hammond, “Directives for the Occupation of Germany,“ pp. 330-33; Penrose,
Economic Planning for Peace, p. 233. Walter L. Dorn, who advised the W ar Depart­
ment on civil affairs in Germany during this period, later observed: “Nothing is more
apparent than the anxious solicitude on the part of the War Department to keep the
American Army of Occupation out of politics, while the Department of State and the
American Delegation in E.A.C. seemed determined to saddle this army with a whole
shoal of essentially political tasks which threatened to outrun the limited administra­
tive capabilities of an army of occupation.” (“Debate over American Occupation Policy
in Germany,” p. 487.)
24Mosely, “Occupation of Germany,” pp. 586—89; William M. Franklin, “Zonal
Boundaries and Access to Berlin,” World Politics, XVI (October, 1963), 8—9, 13—15;
W inant to Hull, February 16, 1944, FR: 1944, I, 173. For the British and Russian
proposals on zonal boundaries see ibid., pp. 150—53, 177—78.
no Repression versus Rehabilitation

These developments caught the Civil Affairs Division off guard, caus­
ing it to revise its previous position that the EAC should not deal with
occupation zones. Late in February, 1944, it sent to the State Depart­
ment for referral to Winant a Joint Chiefs of Staff memorandum, pre­
pared three months earlier, proposing very different zonal boundaries
from those under consideration in the EAC. This plan gave the United
States a huge northwest zone bordering on Berlin, with noticeably
smaller zones for the Russians in the east and the British in the south­
west. It pushed back the boundary of the Soviet zone, which the British
and the Russians had already agreed on, from 50 to 150 miles to the
east. It cut across existing German administrative boundaries, and made
no provision for tripartite occupation of Berlin. It neglected to draw
zonal boundaries all the way to the Czech-German frontier, thus leaving
undefined the border between the British and Soviet zones. Efforts to
elicit some clarification of this extraordinary plan from W ar Department
representatives on the Working Security Committee proved unavailing,
so the State Department simply forwarded this strange document to
W inant with the comforting assurance that it would be “self-
explanatory/’ 25
It was hardly that. Winant refused to submit the plan to the EAC
and dispatched his counselor, George F. Kennan, back to Washington to
protest. Kennan quickly cleared up the matter by going directly to the
President. The War Department’s proposal, Kennan found, stemmed
from a rough sketch of German occupation zones which Roosevelt had
casually drawn on a National Geographic Society map for the Joint
Chiefs of Staff in November, 1943. Subsequent discussions in the EAC
had made presentation of this proposal unfeasible, as Roosevelt readily
acknowledged. But officials in the Civil Affairs Division, confronted un­
expectedly with the need to instruct Winant on zonal boundaries, had
resurrected the plan and insisted on its submission to the EAC, regard­
less of the unfortunate effect this would have had on negotiations there.
State Department reservations about this procedure had been turned
aside by the assertion that the plan represented the wishes of the Com-
25 Stettinius to Winant, March 8, 1944, enclosing C.C.S. 320/4 (Revised), prepared
by the Joint Chiefs of Staff and dated December 4, 1943, FR: 1944, I, 195—96; mem­
orandum by George F. Kennan, April 4, 1944, ibid,, pp. 208—9; Franklin, ‘Zonal
Boundaries/* pp. 17—18; Mosely, “Occupation of Germany/' pp. 591—92. See also a
State Department map, illustrating the differences between the JCS proposal and that
accepted by the British and the Russians, in FR: 1944, I, facing p. 196.
Repression versus Rehabilitation 111

mander in Chief, and hence was not subject to negotiation. Highly

amused by this set of events, F.D.R. quickly shelved the W ar Depart­
ment document and authorized Winant to accept the zonal boundaries
proposed by the British and the Russians.26
Roosevelt’s action failed to break the stalemate over occupation zones,
however, for though willing to accept the boundaries suggested by the
British, he objected strongly to their assignment of southwestern Ger­
many as the American area of responsibility. The President had been led
by Admiral William D. Leahy, former ambassador to Vichy, to expect a
postwar revolution in France, a development which would threaten the
Army’s lines of communication if United States troops were occupying
southwestern Germany. “ ‘Do please don’t!’ ask me to keep any Ameri­
can forces in France,” F.D.R. had written Churchill in February. “I just
cannot do it! I would have to bring them all back home. . . . I de­
nounce and protest the paternity of Belgium, France and Italy. You
really ought to bring up and discipline your own children. In view of
the fact that they may be your bulwark in future days, you should at
least pay for their schooling now!”
Roosevelt failed to sway the Prime Minister, however, and at length
the President’s military advisers persuaded him to accept the southwest­
ern zone, largely on grounds that existing troop deployments would
make it easier for Americans to occupy that part of Germany. But
F.D.R. insisted that the British give the United States two enclaves in
their northwestern zone at the ports of Bremen and Bremerhaven.
American military authorities went to great lengths to negotiate with
the British a precise agreement allowing access to these ports from the
United States zone. Ironically, in view of later events, the War Depart­
ment continued to resist efforts to make similar arrangements with the
Russians for access to Berlin, arguing that this was purely a “military”
matter which commanders on the scene could work out during the ac­
tual invasion of Germany.27

26Kennan, Memoirs, p. 171; Hull to Winant, May 1, 1944, FR: 1944, I, 211. See
also Franklin, “Zonal Boundaries,“ pp. 18—19. The map on which Roosevelt sketched
his plan for occupation zones is reproduced in Matloff, Strategic Planning, 1943—44,
facing p. 341. Joint Chiefs of Staff minutes of their meeting with Roosevelt, which
took place on November 19, 1943, are in FR: Tehran, pp. 253-56, 261.
27 Roosevelt to Churchill, February 29, 1944, FR: 1944, I, 189. See also Franklin,
“Zonal Boundaries,” pp. 19—21; and Mosely, “Occupation of Germany,” pp. 593,
596—97, 604. Harold Macmillan later observed that “Admiral Leahy was one of those
112 Repression versus Rehabilitation

The EAC was not a totally useless organization. In addition to its tor­
tured but eventually fruitful work on occupation zones, the commission
managed after tedious negotiations to hammer out tripartite agreements
on surrender terms and control machinery for Germany.28 But these rep­
resented merely the framework, not the substance, of a common policy.
More significant than the agreements reached in the EAC were the mat­
ters which could not be submitted to it at all because of imperfect politi­
cal-military coordination in Washington. The most important of these
concerned the question of reparations.
Realizing the urgency of settling the reparations issue with the Rus­
sians, the State Department early in 1944 submitted to the Working Se­
curity Committee for referral to the EAC a set of general recommenda­
tions on the economic treatment of Germany, together with specific
suggestions on reparations policy. The Joint Chiefs of Staff held these
documents for two months, then refused to approve them because plans
for military operations against Germany had not progressed far enough
to determine how they would be affected by these economic proposals.
State Department officials carefully rewrote their suggestions, pointedly
emphasizing their nonmilitary character, but these also failed to clear
the Joint Chiefs. Hoping that successful landings in France might have
changed the military’s attitude, the State Department tried once again
late in July, this time submitting a lengthy general statement of policy
on the postwar treatment of Germany. Again the Joint Chiefs waited for
two months, then informed the department that while the papers in
question contained “important considerations of military interest,” these
were “so involved with important political considerations as not to be
separable into sections.” The Joint Chiefs blandly suggested resubmitting
the document to the Working Security Committee, on which, they some­
what superfluously pointed out, “there is military representation.” 29
men who, although unable to converse with any Frenchman in intelligible French, be­
lieved himself the supreme exponent of the French mentality.” {The Blast o f War, p.
160.)
28 These agreements are printed in FR: Yalta, pp. 110—27.
29 Hammond, “Directives for the Occupation of Germany,” pp. 336—38; James C.
Dunn to Admiral William D. Leahy, July 22, 1944, FR: 1944, I, 251—52; Leahy to
Hull, September 29, 1944, ibid., p. 343. Undersecretary of State Stettinius had in­
formed W inant on June 10, 1944, that both the War Department and the Joint
Chiefs were pressing for action in the FAC now that the invasion of France was in
progress. {Ibid., p. 233.)
Repression versus Rehabilitation 113

Not surprisingly, State Department officials soon began to consider

the possibility of bypassing the Working Security Committee, and hence
the EAC, to get reparations talks with the Russians under way. Tripar­
tite agreement on German economic policy was urgent, Hull advised
Winant in August, 1944, and “in view of the need for instituting discus­
sions in the near future it may be impracticable to proceed through
EAC.” Winant agreed. Reparations policy could not be established with­
out agreement on an over-all economic program for Germany, he ad­
vised the department, and this in turn would require study of the Euro­
pean economy as a whole, a subject far beyond the commission’s limited
mandate.
W inant suggested holding reparations talks in Moscow so that Rus­
sian negotiators could refer quickly back to their government for instruc­
tions, thus eliminating one frequent source of delay in the EAC. The
ambassador discreetly avoided reference to the other great impediment
to EAC operations— clearance problems in Washington— but
Philip E. Mosely, his political adviser, noted shortly thereafter:
One of these days we shall have to agree on a lot of policies with regard to
Germany, and unless we can have some papers approved by the JCS [Joint
Chiefs of Staff] we shall be in a position of merely commenting on the
carefully prepared British papers or charging with a feather duster at . . .
Russian statements of policy. . . . [There is] danger of a breakdown of tri­
partite understanding with respect to Germany if our EAC delegation here
cannot be provided in advance with statements of US Government policy.
After all tripartite policy with regard to Germany is the real touchstone of
Allied post-war cooperation. . . . It was for this reason that I suggested to
the Ambassador that it might be valuable to propose having reparation dis­
cussions in Moscow.
Negotiations failed to get under way in the fall of 1944, however, be­
cause of the sudden outbreak of controversy within the Roosevelt Ad­
ministration over the Morgenthau Plan. “Speed on these matters is not
an essential at the present moment,” Roosevelt advised Hull on October
20. “I dislike making detailed plans for a country which we do not yet
occupy.” 30 As a result, American officials made no effort to discuss repa-
30 Hull to Winant, August 16 and 22, 1944, FR: 1944, I, 271—72, 276; W inant to
Hull, August 14 and 19, 1944, ibid., pp. 274—76; Mosely to James W. Riddleberger,
September 5, 1944, ibid., pp. 331—32; Roosevelt to Hull, October 20, 1944, FR:
Yalta, p. 158. For the effect of the Morgenthau controversy in postponing negotiations
114 Repression versus Rehabilitation

rations with the Russians until early 1945, when Roosevelt and Church­
ill met Stalin at Yalta.
“I do not think that any conference or commission created by govern­
ments for a serious purpose has had less support from the governments
creating it than the European Advisory Commission,” Winant com­
plained in the fall of 1944; “at least I do not know of any like example
in recorded history.” The EAC had established the machinery for the oc­
cupation of Germany, but attempts to move beyond this to the content
of policy had failed, chiefly because American military authorities would
not clear instructions to Winant on nonmilitary matters. The War De­
partment and the Joint Chiefs of Staff refused to allow civilian agencies
to formulate long-range policy for Germany lest this impair in some way
the freedom of action of the Army’s military governors. Determined to
stay out of policy-making itself, the military nevertheless shaped the
course of future events by preventing anyone else from making policy.
But Army authorities could never have maintained this paradoxical posi­
tion had they not had at least tacit support from the White House. Seek­
ing to preserve his freedom of action in the political sphere, Roosevelt
had always regarded the EAC warily: “We must emphasize the fact that
the European Advisory Commission is ‘Advisory’ and that you and I are
not bound by this advice,” he reminded Hull late in 1944; “if we do not
remember that word ‘advisory’ they may go ahead and execute some of
the advice, which, when the time comes, we may not like at all.” 31

ill
Anglo-American forces landed in Normandy in June of 1944, and by
the end of July had broken out of their beachheads to begin driving the
Germans out of France. “The enemy in the West has had it,” an intelli­
gence summary from General Eisenhower’s headquarters concluded late
in August; “two and a half months of bitter fighting have brought the
end of the war in Europe within sight, almost within reach.” Even the
with the Russians on Germany, see Moseley, “Occupation of Germany/' p. 596; and
McNeill, America, Britain, and Russia, p. 491.
31 W inant to Hull, October 7, 1944, FR: 1944, I, 351; Roosevelt to Hull, October
20, 1944, FR: Yalta, p. 158.
Repression versus Rehabilitation 115

normally cautious General Marshall succumbed to this mood of opti­

mism, advising his senior commanders on September 13 that the war
against Germany would probably end before November. The rapidly
changing military situation made all the more urgent the need for
Washington officials to decide how they would treat the Germans after
V-E Day, and to secure their allies' approval of these plans. As Secretary
of W ar Stimson later observed, ‘T he armies had outrun the policy
makers.” 32
Under these circumstances, the consistent reluctance of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff to approve proposals for the postwar treatment of Ger­
many failed to stop such planning; it simply caused government officials
who needed guidance in this field to seek it through channels other than
the Working Security Committee. In the spring of 1944, President Roo­
sevelt had formed an interdepartmental Executive Committee on Eco­
nomic Foreign Policy, made up of representatives from the State,
Treasury, Agriculture, Commerce, and Labor departments, the Foreign
Economic Administration, and the United States Tariff Commission. The
War Department was not represented. Encouraged by this omission, the
State Department in June decided to submit to the ECEFP the general
statement on economic policy for Germany which it had been unable to
clear through the Working Security Committee. Department officials re­
alized that some form of interdepartmental consultation would have to
take place in Washington before this document could serve as a basis for
eventual reparations talks with the Russians. The ECEFP considered the
State Department's plan for two months, and after making some revi­
sions approved it on August 4 , 1944.33
The resulting document reflected the State Department's continued
support for a moderate peace as the best guarantee against future aggres­
sion. While it called for measures which would guarantee payment of
32 SHAEF Weekly Intelligence Summary, August 26, 1944, quoted in Pogue, Su­
preme Command, pp. 244—45; Marshall to senior commanders, September 13, 1944,
Eisenhower Papers, IV, 2117; >Stimson and Bundy, On Active Service, p. 566. See also
Hammond, “Directives for the Occupation of Germany,“ pp. 340—41.
33 Hammond, “Directives for the Occupation of Germany,“ p. 342. State Der
ment officials had not yet decided to hold reparations talks outside the EAC at tne
time that they submitted their economic proposals to the ECEFP. Their original intent
had been not to bypass the Joint Chiefs of Staff but to improve their bargaining posi­
tion with that body by securing prior ECEFP endorsement of their plan. (Ibid., p.
343.)
116 Repression versus Rehabilitation

restitution and reparations to Germany's victims, prevent reconversion of

the German economy to war purposes, and eliminate “German economic
domination in Europe,” the plan also proposed integrating the defeated
Reich into “the type of world economy envisaged by the Atlantic
Charter.” This would require maintaining a tolerable standard of living
and would preclude indiscriminate destruction of Germany's industrial
capacity. Punitive policies would not work: “An indefinitely continued
coercion of more than sixty million technically advanced people . . .
would be at best an expensive undertaking and would afford the world
little sense of real security.” 34
Meanwhile, similar proposals for the occupation of Germany were
under discussion at Supreme Headquarters, Allied Expeditionary Forces,
in Great Britain. In preparing for the invasion of Western Europe, Gen­
eral Eisenhower had set up “country units” within the SHAEF organiza­
tion to plan civil affairs operations in liberated and enemy territories.
Since Anglo-American forces were likely to move into Germany within
a few months, the German “country unit,” in the absence of firm direc­
tives from Washington, quickly found it necessary to begin drawing up
specific guidelines for the use of military government authorities. By Au­
gust, 1944, it had produced a Basic Handbook for Military Government
o f Germany.35
SHAEF's “country unit” planners were chiefly civilian experts who
had been recruited into the Army, however, and their guidelines for
Germany differed from the War Department's doctrine of “military ne­
cessity” in several important ways. The SHAEF handbook emphasized
the need for centralized tripartite administration of occupied Germany
34 “Germany: General Objectives of United States Economic Policy with Respect to
Germany,” memorandum by the Executive Committee on Economic Foreign Policy,
approved August 4, 1944, FR: 1944, I, 278—87. See also “The Treatment of Ger­
many,” a memorandum by the State Department Committee on Postwar Problems,
dated August 5, 1944, ibid., pp. 306—25; Hammond, “Directives for the Occupation
of Germany,” pp. 342—46; Blum, Morgenthau Diaries: Years o f War, pp. 331—32;
and John L. Chase, “The Development of the Morgenthau Plan Through the Quebec
Conference,” Journal o f Politics, XVI (May, 1954), 327—28.
35 Dale Clark, “Conflicts over Planning at Staff Headquarters,” in Friedrich and as­
sociates, American Experiences in Military Government, pp. 211—17. See also Pogue,
Supreme Command, p. 353; and Harold Zink, “American Civil-Military Relations in
the Occupation of Germany,” in Harry Coles, ed., Total War and Cold War: Prob­
lems in Civilian Control o f the Military, pp. 212—15.
Repression versus Rehabilitation 117

rather than the Army's policy of seeking maximum freedom of action for
military government authorities in the American zone. SHAEF’s plan­
ners seemed to place the economic welfare of the German people above
the interests of the occupying army, a view which the Army’s recently
revised field manual on military government had explicitly repudiated.
But most important, the SHAEF handbook assumed that the end of the
war would find the German governmental and economic structure in­
tact, prepared to serve the purpose of the occupying authorities. General
Eisenhower had warned the Combined Chiefs of Staff on August 23,
1944, that there probably would be no functioning German government
to surrender to the Allies, and that under the circumstances he as su­
preme commander felt unable to assume responsibility for control and
support of the German economy.36 Hence, the Army was on the verge
of repudiating the SHAEF handbook at the moment of its appearance.
This proved not to be necessary, however, for the handbook, together
with the State Department’s proposals for the economic treatment of
Germany, recently approved by the ECEFP, provoked a violent outburst
from an agency of government not hitherto involved in planning oc­
cupation policy— the Treasury. The resulting furor drastically altered
the direction of postwar planning for Germany within the United States
government and prevented any serious consultation with the other oc­
cupying powers until the summer of 1945, several months after the sur­
render of Germany.
Assistant Secretary of the Treasury Harry Dexter White had sat in on
discussions of the State Department’s plan in the ECEFP during the
summer of 1944. At the same time Colonel Bernard Bernstein, a former
Treasury official, had been keeping his old department advised on
SHAEF planning from his vantage point in the Finance Division of the
German “country unit.” Their observations produced fruit early in Au­
gust, 1944, when Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau, Jr., made a trip
to Europe. During the flight, W hite showed Morgenthau the ECEFP
document, while in England Bernstein summarized the substance of
SHAEF’s handbook. Both struck the Treasury Secretary as too soft on
36 Clark, “Conflicts over Planning at Staff Headquarters/’ pp. 218—19; Penrose, Eco­
nomic Planning for Peace, p. 242; Eisenhower to the Combined Chiefs of Staff, Au­
gust 23, 1944, FWD 13128(SCAF 68), Eisenhower MSS. For a summary of the Army
field manual on military government, see Fainsod, “Development of American Military
Government Policy/* pp. 31—34.
118 Repression versus Rehabilitation

Germany, and he immediately began a campaign to replace them with a

harsher program which came to be known as the Morgenthau Plan.37
Morgenthau and W hite first enunciated this plan at a meeting with
Ambassador Winant and several of his advisers outside London on Au­
gust 12. Too many Englishmen and Americans, Morgenthau argued,
were leaning toward a “soft” peace, the same mistake made after World
War I. The only sure way to prevent future wars would be to eliminate
not only Germany's war-making capacity but its industrial plant as well,
converting that nation into a “pastoral” country. Specifically, Morgen­
thau objected to indications that occupying forces planned to assume re­
sponsibility for the German economy. Economic chaos would be a good
thing, the Treasury Secretary thought— it would bring the fact of de­
feat home to the German people. There should be no attempts to set up
a “WPA” program in the ruins of the Third Reich.38
Morgenthau's plan evoked a mixed reaction. Winant remained non­
committal, but two of his assistants, Philip E. Mosely and E. F. Penrose,
argued strongly against the idea. Mosely warned that any attempt to
wreck Germany's industry would make that country dependent on Rus­
sia, thus opening all of Europe to Soviet domination. Penrose pointed
out that an agricultural economy could not support the population of
Germany, whereupon Morgenthau suggested dumping surplus Germans
in North Africa. British Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden endorsed the
general idea of toughness toward Germany, but maintained a discreet si­
lence regarding the merits of Morgenthau's specific proposal. General Ei­
senhower admitted to Morgenthau that he had not thought much about
postwar treatment of Germany, but he enthusiastically supported elimi­
nation of German war plants. Back in Washington, Secretary of State
Hull seemed sympathetic, reminding Morgenthau of his proposal, vigor­
ously applauded by the Russians at Moscow the year before, to shoot all
German and Japanese leaders upon capture. Only Secretary of War
Stimson expressed outright opposition to the plan on grounds that it
would cause starvation inside Germany.39
37 Blum, Morgenthau Diaries: Years o f War, pp. 333—34; Chase, “Development of
the Morgenthau Plan,” pp. 326—31; Zink, “American Civil-Military Relations in the
Occupation of Germany,” pp. 213—14.
38 Penrose, Economic Planning for Peace, pp. 245—46; Blum, Morgenthau Diaries:
Years o f War, p. 338.
39 Blum, Morgenthau Diaries: Years o f War, pp. 338—42; Penrose, Economic Plan­
ning for Peace, pp. 247—50; Eisenhower, Crusade in Europe, p. 287. Morgenthau’s ac-
Repression versus Rehabilitation 119

In the final analysis, however, the fate of the Morgenthau Plan rested
with President Roosevelt. Inclined since the beginning of the war to
favor harsh treatment of Germany, F.D.R. by August of 1944 had, if
anything, stiffened his views. “We have got to be tough with Germany
and I mean the German people not just the Nazis,” he told Morgenthau
on August 19; “we either have to castrate the German people or you
have got to treat them in such a manner so they can’t just go on repro­
ducing people who want to continue the way they have in the past.”
Two days later, Roosevelt wrote to Senator Kenneth McKellar: “It is
amazing how many people are beginning to get soft in the future terms
[for] the Germans and the Japs.” On the 25th, Morgenthau sent Roose­
velt a memorandum summarizing the SHAEF handbook for Germany.
Roosevelt read it overnight, and the next day sent a stinging rebuke to
Stimson, demanding that the document be withdrawn:
This so-called “Handbook” is pretty bad.. . . It gives me the impression that
Germany is to be restored just as much as the Netherlands or Belgium, and
the people of Germany brought back as quickly as possible to their pre-war
estate.
It is of the utmost importance that every person in Germany should real­
ize that this time Germany is a defeated nation. I do not want them to
starve to death, but, as an example, if they need food to keep body and soul
together beyond what they have, they should be fed three times a day with
soup from Army soup kitchens. That will keep them perfectly healthy and
they will remember that experience ail their lives. . . .
There exists a school of thought both in London and here which would, in
effect, do for Germany what this Government did for its own citizens in
1933 when they were flat on their backs. I see no reason for starting a WPA,
PWA, or a CCC for Germany when we go in with our Army of Occupation.
Too many people here and in England hold to the view that the German
people as a whole are not responsible for what has taken place—that only
a few Nazi leaders are responsible. That unfortunately is not based on fact.
The German people as a whole must have it driven home to them that the
whole nation has been engaged in a lawless conspiracy against the decencies
of modern civilization.*40

count of his interview with Eisenhower described the General as charging advocates of
a soft peace with seeking to build up Germany as a bulwark against Russia. Eisenhow­
er’s account mentions nothing of this, however.
40 Morgenthau account of conversation with Roosevelt, August 19, 1944, quoted in
Blum, Morgenthau Diaries: Years o f War, p. 342; Roosevelt to McKellar, August 21,
1944, Roosevelt MSS, PPF 3715; Roosevelt to Stimson, with copies to Morgenthau
and Hull, August 26, 1944, printed in Blum, pp. 348—49.
120 Repression versus Rehabilitation

Heartened by Roosevelt's reaction, Morgenthau encouraged his staff

to toughen the Treasury's plan. “The President is hungry for this stuff,*'
he told them late in August. “I wouldn't be afraid to make the sugges­
tion just as ruthless as is necessary.” Even then, Morgenthau felt his ad­
visers had not gone far enough. Over the objections of White and other
Treasury officials, he insisted on including in the plan a proposal to dis­
mantle the industry of the Ruhr and Saar, and flood all the coal mines.
“Just strip it,” he told White, “I don't care what happens to the popula­
tion. . . . I would take every mine, every mill and factory and wreck it.
. . . Steel, coal, everything. Just close it down.” 41
Morgenthau reached the height of his influence at the Quebec Confer­
ence in mid-September. Attending at Roosevelt's special invitation, the
Treasury Secretary managed to get the President and Winston Churchill
to initial a document calling for conversion of Germany “into a country
primarily agricultural and pastoral in character.” But in so doing, Mor­
genthau overplayed his hand. He also proposed, and Roosevelt approved,
an unconditional grant of $6.5 billion in lend-lease aid to Britain for the
period between the defeat of Germany and that of Japan. This infuriated
Hull, who had sought to tie continuation of lend-lease to concessions on
trade policy. From this time on the Secretary of State joined subordinates
in his department and Secretary of War Stimson in firmly opposing
Morgenthau's scheme. Moreover, a series of leaks to the press late in
September resulted in publication of the plan. The public response was
overwhelmingly critical, and Republicans began making plans to use
Morgenthau as a campaign issue in the election later that fall.42
Roosevelt immediately backtracked. “No one wants to make Germany
a wholly agricultural nation again,” he assured an indignant Hull on
September 29. Several days later, he admitted to Stimson that Morgen­
thau had “pulled a boner.” When Stimson showed the President the
41 Blum, Morgenthau Diaries: Years o f War, pp. 350—54. For the final version of
the Morgenthau Plan, see ibid., pp. 356—59; and Henry Morgenthau, Jr., Germany Is
Our Problem.
42 Blum, Morgenthau Diaries: Years o f War, pp. 377—78; Hull, Memoirs, II,
1613—14. For public reaction to the Morgenthau Plan, see the Department of State,
“Fortnightly Survey of American Opinion on International Affairs,” No. 12, October
5, 1944. Hull’s implication that he had opposed the Morgenthau Plan from the begin­
ning 0Memoirs, II, 1605—6) is, at best, misleading. On this point, see Hammond,
“Directives for the Occupation of Germany,” pp. 370—71; and Penrose, Economic
Planning for Peace, p. 253-
Repression versus Rehabilitation 121

memorandum he and Churchill had initialed at Quebec, F.D.R. was star­

tled, admitting that he had approved the document without much
thought. The whole furor had resulted from inaccurate newspaper re­
porting, Roosevelt misleadingly asserted on October 9; “there is ob­
viously no ‘idea of turning [the] German economy upside down and ex­
pecting it to work/ ” The President’s major campaign speech on foreign
policy, delivered in New York on October 21, took a noticeably moder­
ate position on the postwar treatment of Germany. Early in November,
F.D.R. allowed State Department officials to draft a letter for him argu­
ing that “German productive skill and experience should be utilized for
the general economic welfare of Europe and the world” as long as this
did not threaten peace.43
Morgenthau’s plan for the “pastoralization” of Germany is under­
standable as a reflection of irrational wartime hatred for a cruel and
stubborn enemy. Nor is it surprising that many government officials, not
wanting to appear “soft” on Germany, at first supported the plan.44
Upon reflection, however, the impractical and inhumane aspects of the
proposal quickly became clear, causing support for it within the Roose­
velt Administration to crumble even before unwanted publicity brought
about the President’s disavowal. W hat is surprising is that the spirit of
the Morgenthau Plan survived its official repudiation and went on to in­
fluence profoundly the occupation policies which the United States ini­
tially implemented inside Germany.
The Treasury Secretary’s proposal appealed to lower-echelon War De­
partment officials as a means of simplifying the task of military govern­
ment. Morgenthau’s plan appeared just as Army authorities had begun
to worry about being stuck with responsibility for reviving the German
economy, which seemed likely to collapse completely before V-E Day.
By asserting that economic chaos in Germany was not inconsistent with
American objectives, Morgenthau gave the Army a convenient excuse
for avoiding this burden, which threatened to ensnarl military govern­
ment officials in a tangle of distasteful nonmilitary complications.
43 Roosevelt to Hull, September 29, 1944, FR: Yalta, p. 155; Stimson Diary, Octo­
ber 3, 1944, quoted in Stimson and Bundy, On Active Service, p. 581; Roosevelt to
Pierre Jay, October 9, 1944, Roosevelt MSS, OF 198-A; speech to the Foreign Policy
Association, October 21, 1944, FDR: Public Papers, XIII, 352—53; Roosevelt to
Nicholas Murray Butler, November 11, 1944, Roosevelt MSS, PPF 445.
44 On these points, see Clark, “Conflicts over Planning at Staff Headquarters,’* pp.
212—13; and Snell, Dilemma over Germany, p. 13.
122 Repression versus Rehabilitation

Roosevelt's blast at the SHAEF handbook, provoked by Morgenthau,

had come just as the Army itself was moving toward repudiating the
ideas contained in that document. The ex-civilians in SHAEF’s German
“country unit” had failed to reflect the concern of professional officers
within SHAEF and the W ar Department to insulate military govern­
ment from political and economic complications. Accordingly, Civil Af­
fairs Division representatives attached to SHAEF, upon hearing of Roo­
sevelt's complaint, had gladly ordered fundamental modifications to
bring the handbook into line with Morgenthau's position: Occupation
authorities would make no effort to rehabilitate the German economy
beyond what was necessary for military purposes. They would import
and distribute no relief supplies except where absolutely necessary to pre­
vent disease and disorder. They would carry out a rigorous program to
purge former Nazis from German governmental positions. Finally, they
would treat Germany as a defeated, not a liberated, country.45
Simultaneously, the impending collapse of Germany had convinced
Washington officials that General Eisenhower needed a new directive on
the administration of military government after V-E Day. An existing
directive, issued by the Combined Chiefs of Staff in April, 1944, applied
only to German territory occupied before the official surrender. Hopes
were not high that the EAC could agree on tripartite postwar occupa­
tion policy in the near future. Hence, representatives from the State,
War, and Treasury departments decided early in September to begin
drafting an interim directive on Germany which Eisenhower could use
from the end of the fighting until the Allies finished working out long-
range occupation policies.46
Morgenthau's influence significantly affected the preparation of this
document, which was completed on September 23, after the Treasury
Secretary's trip to Quebec but before news of his plan had leaked to the
press. The interim directive began by instructing Eisenhower to take ac­
tions only “of short term and military character, in order not to preju­
dice whatever ultimate policies may be later determined upon.” This nod
45 SHAEF Civil Affairs Division order of September 15, 1944, cited in Pogue, Su­
preme Command, p. 356. See also Hammond, “Directives for the Occupation of Ger­
many," p. 356. For the conflict between ex-civilians and military professionals inside
SHAEF, see Clark, “Conflicts over Planning at Staff Headquarters," pp. 214—20.
46 Hammond, “Directives for the Occupation of Germany," pp. 328—29, 371.
Repression versus Rehabilitation 123

to War Department sensibilities out of the way, the directive then went
on to make policy with a vengeance, largely in accord with Treasury
Department wishes. Like the revised handbook, it emphasized treating
Germany as a defeated, not a liberated, nation. American military au­
thorities would do nothing to rehabilitate the German economy except
to avoid disease or disorder that might threaten occupation forces. Ger­
man officials would retain primary responsibility for the economy’s func­
tioning. But the directive also called for an elaborate “denazification”
program, including the arrest of all Nazis and Nazi sympathizers, down
to and including local party and government authorities. Since most
German officials were Nazis, this meant, as State Department representa­
tives pointed out, a policy of “planned chaos.” The War Department ac­
cepted the Treasury’s suggestions, however, and State, demoralized by the
Morgenthau affair, went along. The Joint Chiefs of Staff cleared the in­
terim directive in record time— one day— assigning it in the process
the file number by which it became known: JCS 1067.47
In the light of Stimson’s determined opposition to the Morgenthau
Plan, the War Department’s decision to approve the document seems
puzzling. But in this case, Stimson’s views failed to reflect the position of
his own department. Assistant Secretary of War McCloy, who repre­
sented the Army during the drafting of JCS 1067, placed primary em­
phasis on obtaining some kind of directive for Eisenhower, regardless of
its content. A German collapse in 1944 still seemed possible, and Eisen­
hower urgently needed instructions. Furthermore, Civil Affairs Division
officers both in Washington and at SHAEF saw in Morgenthau’s doc­
trine of “planned chaos” a means of avoiding the involvement with civil
affairs which military government planners had long dreaded. Finally, as
a unilateral order from the Joint Chiefs to the commander of the United
States zone in Germany, JCS 1067 had the additional advantage of by­
passing the tripartite Control Council due to be set up in Berlin, thus in­
creasing the authority of American military government officials.
Eisenhower was duly grateful. “I want you to know how much I appre­
ciate your efforts,” he wrote McCloy early in November, “to protect us
47 “Directive to SCAEF Regarding the Military Government of Germany in the Pe­
riod Immediately Following the Cessation of Organized Resistance (Post-Defeat),“ Sep­
tember 22, 1944, FR: Yalta, pp. 143—54. See also Hammond, “Directives for the Oc­
cupation of Germany,“ pp. 371—77, 390—91.
124 Repression versus Rehabilitation

from a complex system of advisers which would only add to the difficul­
ties of a straight forward problem of military government.” 48
“Military necessity” thus finally forced the War Department to define
its position on the occupation of Germany. This gave the State Depart­
ment little comfort, however, for JCS 1067, if put into effect for even a
brief period of time, seemed likely to undermine the department’s long-
range objectives in that country. The interim directive to Eisenhower re­
flected too much of the spirit of the Morgenthau Plan. By forbidding
military government officials from rehabilitating the economy beyond
the point necessary to safeguard American troops, JCS 1067 would pre­
clude attainment of a “tolerable” standard of living for the German peo­
ple, one of the major prerequisites, in the State Department’s view, for
the emergence of democratic institutions inside Germany. By emphasiz­
ing the autonomy of the zonal commander, the directive also threatened
to detract from the authority of the Allied Control Council in Beilin,
thus making tripartite agreement on occupation policies more difficult to
achieve. At the same time, however, the interim directive had been
cleared by the Joint Chiefs of Staff, an advantage long-suffering State
Department officials were not inclined to take lightly. Hence, early in
November, they hit on the strategy of proposing JCS 1067 to the EAC
as a tripartite policy for Germany, but only after revising it thoroughly
to eliminate as many traces as possible of the Morgenthau Plan.49
Acting Secretary of State Stettinius warned President Roosevelt on
November 11 that the British and the Russians would never accept
Morgenthau’s tactic of “planned chaos.” Stressing the importance of tri­
partite cooperation in Germany, Stettinius recommended changing JCS
48 Penrose, Economic Planning for Peace, p. 271; Hammond, “Directives for the
Occupation of Germany,” pp. 401—2; Dorn, “Debate over American Occupation Pol­
icy/* PP- 492, 494—95; Coles and Weinberg, Civil Affairs, pp. 139—41; Clark, “Con­
flicts over Planning at Staff Headquarters,” pp. 230—31; Eisenhower to McCloy, No­
vember 1, 1944, Eisenhower Papers, IV, 2269. McCloy later asserted that the War
Department approved JCS 1067 with the expectation that the American zonal com­
mander would modify its unrealistic provisions in the process of applying it. (Dorn,
“Debate over American Occupation Policy,” p. 501.) JCS 1067 had originally been
planned as an Anglo-American directive, but the British Chiefs of Staff never ap­
proved it. (Hammond, “Directives for the Occupation of Germany,” pp. 376—77.)
49 PR: 1944, 407—8, 410—11; Hammond, “Directives for the Occupation of Ger-
many,” pp. 393, 397—400. See also Fainsod, “Development of American Military
Government Policy,” p. 34; and Clark, “Conflicts over Planning at Staff Headquar­
ters,” pp. 230—31.
Repression versus Rehabilitation 125

1067 to allow occupation authorities to take “all possible steps in the in­
itial phases of occupation to prevent development of a chaotically un­
manageable economic situation.” Roosevelt at first indicated sympathy
for this point of view, but after consulting Morgenthau asked the State
Department to redraft its suggestion. Further efforts by department offi­
cials to elicit a firm statement of policy from the White House proved
fruitless.50
Attempts by State Department representatives to win War and Treas­
ury support for the changes they wanted in JCS 1067 turned out to be
equally frustrating. James W. Riddleberger, chief of the Division of Cen­
tral European Affairs, complained in December that War Department
negotiators “were obviously under categorical instructions to adhere as
closely as possible to the original” for fear of offending the Treasury. As
a result, little could be done to the political section of the document ex­
cept to “improve the arrangement, the phrasing and the German.”
Emile Despres, one of the department’s German experts, later noted how
W ar and Treasury officials had come to share a common interest in a
“limited liability” concept of military government which would preclude
assuming responsibility for operation of the German economy:
The War Department favors this limited definition of the Army’s tasks be­
cause (1) they favor a simple, clear-cut military occupation, (2) they wish, by
limiting the task, to minimize the need for consultation and negotiation
among the commanders of the several zones of occupation, and (3) they wish
to keep the job within the capabilities of the occupation forces. The Treasury
supports the doctrine of limited liability because (1) they consider that ex­
treme disruption in Germany is not in conflict with Allied interests, and (2)
acceptance of any responsibility for the minimum functioning of the German
economy would cause us to make compromises with respect to elimination of
Nazis.51
The State Department therefore failed in its first attempt to reconcile
the Army’s short-range plans for military government with its own
long-range objective of transforming Germany into a democracy.
50 Stettinius to Roosevelt, November 11, 1944, FR: 1944, I, 398—403; Leo Pasvol-
sky memorandum, Stetdnius-Roosevelt conversation, November 15, 1944, ibid., pp.
409—10; Blum, Morgenthau Diaries: Years o f War, pp. 390—93.
51 Riddleberger to James C. Dunn and H. Freeman Matthews, December 14, 1944,
FR: 1944, I, 420; Despres to William L. Clayton and Edward S. Mason, February 15,
1945, FR: 1945, III, 412—13. See also Dorn, “Debate over American Occupation Pol­
icy in Germany,’*pp. 487, 498—500.
126 Repression versus Rehabilitation

IV

The State Department did regain some influence over German policy as
a whole, however, as President Roosevelt began preparations for the sec­
ond Big Three meeting early in 1945. F.D.R.'s embarrassment over pub­
lication of the Morgenthau Plan had weakened the Treasury Secretary's
position, despite the fact that Roosevelt, as he told State Department offi­
cials in November, was still “determined to be tough with Germany,"
Formation in December of the State-War-Navy Coordinating Commit­
tee, composed of assistant secretaries from each department, did much to
improve civil-military consultation on major policy questions. Communi­
cation between the President and the State Department increased sub­
stantially after Stettinius became secretary of state upon Hull's
retirement late in November, and, at the request of Harry Hopkins, ap­
pointed Charles E. Bohlen as special liaison officer to the W hite House.
Significantly Roosevelt invited Stettinius, but not Morgenthau, to ac­
company him to Yalta to meet Churchill and Stalin.52
The State Department's briefing book papers on Germany, prepared
for the President's use at Yalta, stressed the importance of preventing
each occupying power from following unilateral policies, even if this
meant “curtailing to some degree the freedom of action of the com­
mander of the United States Zone." Tripartite agreement on centralized
administration would ensure that the industrialized parts of Germany
under Anglo-American control would receive badly needed food ship­
ments from the predominantly agricultural Soviet Zone. Furthermore,
the department added cautiously, “establishment of a comprehensive
military government would prevent the equally undesirable development
of the importation into Germany of a substantially ready-made provi­
sional government perhaps recognized by and functioning under special
52 Blum, Morgenthau Diaries: Years o f War, pp. 382—83; Pasvolsky memorandum,
Roosevelt-Stettinius conversation, November 15, 1944, FR: Yalta, p. 172; Snell, Di­
lemma over Germany, pp. 116—17; Stettinius, Roosevelt and the Russians, pp. 29—31.
On the development of the State-War-Navy Coordinating Committee, see FR: 1944, I,
1466—70; Ray S. Cline, Washington Command Post, pp. 322—27; and Ernest R. May,
“The Development of Political-Military Consultation in the United States,“ Political
Science Quarterly, LXX (June, 1955), 161—80.
Repression versus Rehabilitation 127

foreign auspices.” In the economic field, the department called for reduc­
ing, but not destroying, the German industrial plant in order to prevent
rearmament and provide reparations. Efforts should be directed toward
the eventual “assimilation— on a basis of equality— of a reformed,
peaceful and economically non-aggressive Germany into a liberal system
of world trade.” Finally, in economics as in other areas, the Big Three
should endeavor to reach agreements before the termination of hostili­
ties, so as to “minimize the danger of new European rivalries.” 53
On the sensitive issue of reparations a firm resolve not to repeat past
mistakes shaped the State Department’s position. “We were most anx­
ious,” Stettinius later recalled, “to avoid the disastrous experience of repa­
rations after World War I.” To prevent a recurrence of the currency
transfer problems which had plagued the Allies in the interwar period,
the department advocated having Germany make payments in kind—
goods and services— rather than in money. A fixed time limit—
preferably five but not more than ten years— should govern how
long Germany would have to pay. The department advised against stat­
ing Germany’s reparations obligation in terms of a specific sum of
money, because no one knew what the German capacity to pay would
be at the end of the war. Such an approach would also “avoid difficulties
with public opinion in the Allied countries, which is likely to regard any
given amount of reparation as inadequate.” Finally, it should be made
clear to all concerned that, unlike its policy in the 1920s, “the U.S. will
not finance the transfer of reparation either directly by extending loans
or credits to Germany, or indirectly by assuming a burden of supplying
at its own expense essential goods or equipment to Germany.” President
Roosevelt strongly supported these recommendations, explaining to Ad­
miral Leahy on the way to Yalta that he was determined to “avoid the
pitfalls that had made the World War I reparations actually a burden
on America.” 54
53 Yalta briefing book papers, “The Treatment of Germany“ and “Economic Policies
Toward Germany,“ FR: Yalta, pp. 178—93. On Roosevelt’s use of these documents,
see the conflicting accounts in Stettinius, Roosevelt and the Russians, p. 30; James F.
Byrnes, Speaking Frankly, p. 23; and Leahy, I Was There, p. 343.
54 Stettinius, Roosevelt and the Russians, p. 299; Yalta briefing book paper, “Repa­
ration and Restitution Policy Toward Germany,” January 16, 1945, FR: Yalta, pp.
194—97; Leahy, I Was There, p. 343. For the influence of the post-World War I ex­
perience on planning reparations policy, see Penrose, Economic Planning for Peace,
128 Repression versus Rehabilitation

At Yalta, the Russians agreed to a ten-year time limit and reparations

in kind, to be taken partly by the physical removal of heavy industrial
equipment, partly by seizing production from surviving facilities. The
Soviet proposal diverged from the Anglo-American position, however, in
two important respects: The Russians called for tripartite agreement on
a fixed monetary sum to be taken out of Germany, suggesting the figure
of $20 billion, of which half would go to the USSR. They also assigned
first priority to the extraction of reparations, making no firm provisions
for preventing starvation or maintaining the German standard of living.
The Russians never advocated going as far as Morgenthau's plan for the
indiscriminate destruction of German industry— indeed the Soviets
several times expressed opposition to the Treasury's scheme, which
would have precluded reparations from current production— but their
proposals nonetheless raised fears among the British and Americans of
mass starvation in the industrialized but food-poor Western zones. The
United States had lent Germany “over ten billion dollars” after World
W ar I, Roosevelt pointed out. This time it would not repeat the mistake.
Germany should pay reparations, but not to the point of causing eco­
nomic chaos, for he “did not wish to contemplate the necessity of help­
ing the Germans to keep from starving.” If one wanted a horse to pull a
wagon, Churchill remonstrated, one had at least to give it fodder. True
enough, Stalin replied, “but care should be taken to see that the horse
did not turn around and kick you.” *55
The conflict over reparations proved too deep to resolve at Yalta, so
pp. 218—19; Jacob Viner, “German Reparations Once M ore/’ Foreign Affairs, XXI
(July, 1943), 659—73; “W hat Should Germany Pay?” Fortune, XXIX (February,
1944), 134—38, 231; and William Diebold, Jr., “W hat Shall Germany Pay? The New
Reparations Problem/’ in the Council on Foreign Relations series, “American Interests
in the W ar and the Peace/’ April, 1944. For an illuminating discussion of the whole
reparations issue, written from a revisionist point of view, see Bruce Kuklick, “The
Division of Germany and American Policy on Reparations/’ Western Political Quar­
terly, XXIII (June, 1970), 276-93.
55 Bohlen minutes, Second Plenary Meeting, February 5, 1944, FR: Yalta, pp.
620—21. See also the Soviet proposal, “Basic Principles of Exaction of Reparations
from Germany/’ submitted to the foreign ministers on February 7, 1945, ibid., p 707.
A. A. Sobolev, vice-chairman of the Russian delegation to the Dumbarton Oaks Con­
ference, had told Leo Pasvolsky in September, 1944, that he was “certain that Mr.
Morgenthau’s type of thinking was not acceptable to the Soviet Government.’’ (Pasvol­
sky memorandum of conversation with Sobolev, September 28, 1944, Hull MSS, Box
61, Folder 250.) See also Blum, Morgenthau Diaries: Years o f War, pp. 386, 398—99;
Penrose, Economic Planning for Peace, pp. 281—82; and Kolko, The Politics o f War,
pp. 324, 326-27.
Repression versus Rehabilitation 129

the Big Three simply referred it to a new tripartite commission, which

would hold meetings in Moscow. The Americans reluctantly agreed to
accept the Soviet figure of $20 billion as a “basis for negotiations,” but
the British refused even to go this far. The other Yalta decisions on Ger­
many were equally vague: the three heads of government postponed
until later final settlement of the issues of dismemberment, war crimi­
nals, and the Polish-German border. The only definite agreement on
Germany which Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin reached was their deci­
sion to give France an occupation zone and a seat on the Allied Control
Council.56
State Department officials were pleased, however, with the extent to
which Roosevelt had followed their advice at Yalta. The President's firm
stand on reparations seemed to indicate that he had abandoned, once
and for all, Morgenthau's policy of “planned chaos” in Germany. Upon
his return to Washington, Roosevelt instructed Secretary of State Stettin-
ius to assume responsibility for implementing the conference decisions.57
Stettinius was attending an inter-American meeting in Mexico City at
the time, but his subordinates in the department, pleasantly surprised by
this unaccustomed grant of authority, quickly seized the opportunity to
launch a second effort to purge all traces of the Morgenthau Plan from
JCS 1067.
Acting Secretary of State Joseph C. Grew instructed Ambassador
Winant not to present the revised version of that document to the Euro­
pean Advisory Commission. Meanwhile department officials, working
under the direction of Assistant Secretary of State James C. Dunn, rap­
idly prepared a completely new draft directive, incorporating provisions
which the State Department had sought all along. This document ex­
plicitly deemphasized the autonomy of zonal commanders, endorsed a
moderate denazification policy, and called for a “substantial degree of
centralized financial and economic control” from the now quadripartite
Control Council. Stettinius approved the new directive upon his return
to Washington on March 10, and sent it to the White House. To the de­
light of the State Department, Roosevelt returned it several days later
with the marginal notation: “OK, FDR.” 58
56 Yalta Conference protocol, February 11, 1945, FR: Yalta, pp. 978—80.
57 Roosevelt to Stettinius, February 28, 1945, FR: 1945, III, 433.
58 Grew to Winant, February 28, 1945, cited in Hammond, “Directives for the Oc­
cupation of Germany/’ p. 415; Stettinius to Roosevelt, March 10, 1945, enclosing
“Draft Directive for the Treatment of Germany,” FR: 1945, III, 433—38. Apparently a
130 Repression versus Rehabilitation

The State Department’s initiative caused consternation in both the

Pentagon and the Treasury, although for different reasons. Stimson and
McCloy disliked the new directive’s emphasis on central administration
from the Control Council in Berlin. The Secretary of W ar complained
on March 15 that “we were not going to get a four-headed body com­
prising three great nations [presumably France did not qualify in this
respect] to achieve uniformity in the application of details of policy.”
Morgenthau charged heatedly that the new policy appeared to mean
“that the power of the German Empire would be continued and recon­
structed.” Later the Treasury Secretary cornered Stettinius and extracted
from the Secretary of State the admission that subordinates had handed
him the new draft: directive upon his return from Mexico, that he had
been tired, and that he “really didn’t know what was in it.” State De­
partment officials had gone off “on a frolic of their own,” McCloy com­
plained to Morgenthau on the 17th; “we’ve got a right to sulk.” Mor­
genthau agreed: “It’s damnable, an outrage.” On March 20, the
Treasury Secretary took Roosevelt a memorandum arguing that the
State Department document “goes absolutely contrary to your views,”
and citing specific departures from JCS 1067. Roosevelt, obviously
in poor health, admitted to Morgenthau that he did not remem­
ber signing the State Department’s directive, and wanted to rescind
i t *59
Now consternation reigned in the State Department. Undersecretary
of State Grew found the President’s absent-mindedness “amazing.” Stet­
tinius, from his farm in Virginia, told his associates that if he were in
Washington he was sure he could jog the President’s memory. But on
March 22, Roosevelt complained that he had been “sold a bill of goods”
and informed the State Department that the March 10 document would
report by an official of the Foreign Economic Administration, James A. Perkins, call­
ing for complete revision of JCS 1067, also influenced the State Department initiative.
The conclusion of Perkins* report, dated March 3, 1943, is quoted in Hammond,
"Directives for the Occupation of Germany,’*pp. 414—15.
59 Minutes, Stettinius-Stimson-Morgenthau meeting, March 15, 1945, FR: 1945, III,
454—55; Blum, Morgenthau Diaries: Years o f War, pp. 403—8. See also Hammond,
"Directives for the Occupation of Germany," pp. 418—20. A memorandum prepared
on March 16, 1945, by an unidentified State Department official pointed out: "The
Treasury and War Departments advocate the same policy for different reasons: Treas­
ury wants chaos; War wants decentralization and complete authority for its zone com­
mander." (FR: 1945, III, 457.)
Repression versus Rehabilitation 131

have to be rewritten. The following day representatives from the State,

War, and Treasury departments met and agreed on a new policy state­
ment, making minor concessions to the State Department position but
for the most part reasserting the philosophy of JCS 1067. Roosevelt ap­
proved the document on the same day, marking it: “OK, FDR., su­
perseding memo of March 10,1945.” 60
JCS 1067 still needed further revision before it could be put into ef­
fect, a process which took until May, 1945. Harry S. Truman, who had
become President upon Roosevelt's death in April, approved the final
version on May 11, 1945, three days after Germany's surrender. Still
very much a Treasury document, it called for broad denazification poli­
cies but left responsibility for the German economy for the most part up
to the Germans. The W ar Department, seeking to minimize the political
and economic responsibilities of the American zonal commander, had
firmly resisted State Department attempts to modify these provisions.
“This is a big day for the Treasury,'' Morgenthau noted in his diary after
Truman had signed the directive. “ £I] hope somebody doesn't recognize
it as the Morgenthau Plan.” 61

Hence, by the time of Germany's surrender, the United States still

had not decided between repression and rehabilitation as the best way to
prevent future aggression. The American plan on reparations, endorsed
by Roosevelt at Yalta, followed the State Department’s desire to main­
tain a tolerable standard of living inside Germany, both as a means of
encouraging the emergence of democratic institutions there, and in
hopes of promoting the economic revival of Europe. American occupa­
tion policy, however, still reflected the Treasury's call for a peace of
vengeance, not because of the intrinsic merit of this idea, which Roose­
velt had repudiated, but because the Army simply considered it more
convenient than the State Department's program. Neither side had made
any serious attempt to develop its plans for Germany in the light of pos­
sible difficulties with the Soviet Union. Events of the spring of 1945
60 Blum, Morgenthau Diaries: Years o f War, pp. 407, 410—12; Grew memorandum
of telephone conversation with Stettinius, March 22, 1945, FR: 1945, III, 469—70;
“Memorandum Regarding American Policy for the Treatment of Germany," March 23,
1945, ibid., pp. 471-73.
61 Blum, Morgenthau Diaries: Years o f War, p. 460. For the final revisions of JCS
1067, see Hammond, “Directives for the Occupation of Germany," pp. 422—27.
132 Repression versus Rehabilitation

made it impossible to ignore the problem of Russia any longer, however,

and would by the time of the next Big Three meeting in July force a
badly needed rationalization of American policy om the postwar treat­
ment of Germany.
 Security versus Self-Determination:
The Problem of Eastern Europe

In contrast to their confusion over Germany, Washington officials knew

what they wanted in Eastern Europe: maximum possible self-determina­
tion for the people of that region without impairing the unity of the
Grand Alliance. Unfortunately these two goals— both fundamental el­
ements in the American program for preventing future wars—
conflicted with each other. Stalin had made it clear since the summer
of 1941 that he would not tolerate hostile states along his western bor­
der, yet in most of Eastern Europe free elections, if held, would produce
governments unfriendly to Moscow.1 The existence of two clear objec­
tives thus did not simplify the task of Roosevelt and his advisers, because
both could not be attained. A choice would have to be made, in the
light of American interests, between self-determination for Eastern Eu­
rope and cooperation with the Soviet Union.
W ith characteristic optimism, Roosevelt hoped he could avoid making
this decision. Throughout the war he worked to convince the East Euro­
peans that they had nothing to fear from Russia and that they could af;
ford to choose governments acceptable to Moscow. Simultaneously he
sought to persuade Stalin that the defeat and disarmament of Germany,
together with maintenance of big-power unity into the postwar period,
1 McNeill, America, Britain, and Russia, p. 535.
134 Security versus Self-Determination

would do more to guarantee Soviet security than would territorial gains

and spheres of influence in Eastern Europe. If a choice became inevita­
ble, however, Roosevelt knew in which direction he would move. Self-
determination he had always regarded as an ideal to be striven for, but
not practically attainable in all situations.2 Cooperation with the Soviet
Union, though, was essential both to win the war and to keep the peace
after victory. By the end of 1943, the President had cautiously indicated
to the Russians that they could count on a free hand in Eastern Europe.
At the same time, however, the President hoped that Stalin would be
discreet, for any appearance of abandoning self-determination would
cause F.D.R. serious political problems inside the United States. Several
million Polish-Americans might defect from the Democratic Party in
1944, endangering Roosevelt’s chances for reelection. Even more impor­
tant, any flagrant violations of the Atlantic Charter might give critics of
international organization sufficient ammunition to kill American par­
ticipation in the United Nations, just as Wilson’s departures from the
Fourteen Points a quarter-century earlier had contributed to the Senate’s
rejection of the League of Nations. For these reasons, Roosevelt felt that
he could not publicly back away from his promises of a peace settlement
which would allow the people of Europe to determine their own future,
even though he knew that the likelihood of this happening in countries
bordering Russia was small.
But by failing to prepare the American people for Stalin’s demands in
Eastern Europe, Roosevelt inadvertently undermined the domestic con­
sensus necessary for his postwar policy of cooperation with the Soviet
Union. Having been led by the President’s own rhetoric to expect self-
determination everywhere, Americans reacted angrily when the Soviet
Union proceeded to extract territorial concessions from its neighbors,
and to impose spheres of influence on them. Interpreting these actions as
first steps in a renewed bid for world revolution, Americans, lessons of
the past firmly in mind, gradually came to regard Stalin as an aggressor
with unlimited ambitions who, like Hitler, would have to be resisted
and contained.
2 Range, Roosevelt's World Order, pp. 33—34; Feis, Churchill, Roosevelt, Stalin, p.
22.
Security versus Self-Determination 135

When the second front did not materialize as promised in 1942, Stalin
felt free to reassert his territorial claims, not only to the Baltic States
and portions of Finland and Rumania, but to eastern Poland as well.
Even more ominously, the Russians broke diplomatic relations with the
Polish government-in-exile in London in April, 1943, after the Poles
had asked the International Red Cross to investigate German charges
that the Russians had massacred several thousand Polish officers at
Katyn Woods in 1940.3 The Red Army's massive victory at Stalingrad
early in 1943 had drastically shifted the military balance on the eastern
front in favor of the Russians, making it apparent that Stalin soon
would be in a position to impose his will on Eastern Europe. Roosevelt
gradually came to realize, as the British had before him, that he would
have to work out some kind of accommodation with the Russians on this
matter while the war was still on.
When Anthony Eden came to Washington in March of 1943, he
found the President far more willing to accept Soviet territorial demands
than he had been a year earlier. Roosevelt still thought that Russian ab­
sorption of the Baltic States would “meet with a good deal of resistance”
in the United States, and hoped the Kremlin might make its action
more palatable by holding plebiscites. But, “realistically, the Russian ar­
mies would be in the Baltic States at the time of the downfall of Ger­
many and none of us can force them to get out.” The President took a
similar position on Poland:
The big powers would have to decide what Poland should have and . . . he,
the President, did not intend to go to the Peace Conference and bargain
with Poland or the other small states; as far as Poland is concerned, the im­
portant thing is to set it up in a way that will help maintain the peace of
the world.
Both Eden and Roosevelt agreed, in addition, that Stalin would want,
and should get, boundary concessions from Finland and Rumania.4
3 On this matter, see FR: 1943, III, 323-27, 374-93.
4 Harry Hopkins memorandum of Roosevelt-Eden conversation, March 15, 1943,
FR: 1943, III, 13—18. See also ibid., pp. 34—36; and Eden, The Reckoning, pp.
136 Security versus Self-Determination

The President’s position on Eastern Europe changed little in the

months between Eden’s visit and Roosevelt’s first meeting with Stalin at
Teheran. In a magazine interview published in April, F.D.R. expressed
the hope that Stalin’s territorial claims could be satisfied "through a
combination of plebiscite and trusteeship techniques” without violating
the Atlantic Charter. Three months later, he frankly warned Polish am­
bassador Jan Ciechanowski that the United States would not fight Stalin
to prevent him from taking eastern Poland and the Baltic States. In Sep­
tember, the President told Archbishop Francis Spellman that there
would be no point in opposing Stalin’s territorial demands because the
Russian leader had the power to take these areas, regardless of what
Britain and the United States did. It would be better to yield to Stalin’s
requests gracefully. At about the same time, Roosevelt repeated this
conclusion to W. Averell Harriman, his new ambassador in Moscow, but
added that he would try to keep Stalin from going too far by stressing
the unfavorable world reaction this would provoke, by agreeing to dis­
member Germany in hopes of making the Russians feel more secure,
and by offering American economic assistance in repairing Soviet war
damage. Shortly after this, the President informed Secretary of State
Hull that he intended to appeal to Stalin "on the grounds of high mo­
rality.” Neither England nor the United States would fight to save the
Baltic States, he would tell Stalin, but Russia would improve its standing
in the eyes of the world if it would hold plebiscites in the territories it
planned to take over.*5
Roosevelt’s advisers generally agreed that the United States could do
little to prevent Stalin from taking the territory he wanted. Joseph E.
Davies reported after a trip to Moscow in the summer of 1943 that the
Russians "are going to take back what they consider was wrongfully
taken from them.” John D. Hickerson, assistant chief of the State De­
partment’s Division of European Affairs, warned that any attempt to
reestablish the boundaries of September 1, 1939, in Eastern Europe
would be "sheer military fantasy.” Professor Isaiah Bowman of Johns
431—32. Eden says that Roosevelt mentioned favorably the Curzon line as the eastern
boundary of Poland» but there is no indication of this in the American records.
5 Forrest Davis, “Roosevelt’s World Blueprint,” pp. 20 ff.; Ciechanowski, Defeat in
Victory, p. 186; Gannon, The Cardinal Spellman Story, p. 223; Feis, Churchill, Roo­
sevelt, Stalin, pp. 174—75; Hull, Memoirs, II, 1266. On the authenticity of the Davis
article as an expression of Roosevelt’s views, see Divine, Second Chance, pp. 114—15.
Security versus Self-Determination 137

Hopkins University, once a member of Woodrow Wilson’s “Inquiry”

and now on the State Department’s Advisory Committee on Postwar
Foreign Policy, favored making the Poles return some of the land they
had taken when they “had Russia down” after World W ar I. Soviet in­
corporation of the Baltic States would shock American opinion, Bowman
felt, but there was little the United States could do about it short of
going to war with Russia. Admiral William D. Leahy, as Chief of Staff
to the Commander in Chief Roosevelt’s most influential military adviser,
thought it “inconceivable” that Stalin would allow Poland and the Bal­
tic States to regain their independent status after the war. By employing
its superior military power and by threatening to make a separate peace
with Germany, Russia could, Leahy thought, keep the United States and
Britain from interfering.6
Early in November, Ambassador Harriman sent Roosevelt an in­
formed estimate of Soviet intentions in Eastern Europe, based on infor­
mation he had picked up during the Moscow Conference of Foreign
Ministers in October. The Russians would insist strongly on their 1941
frontiers, Harriman wrote. They believed that the British had already
agreed to these boundaries, and that American failure to discuss the issue
up to this point indicated that Washington had no serious objections.
“The problem of Poland is even tougher than we believed.” The Rus­
sians would not content themselves simply with territorial gains at the
expense of Poland, but would insist on having a “friendly” government
installed in Warsaw. They regarded the Polish government-in-exile in
London as “hostile, and therefore completely unacceptable to them.”
Above all, the Soviets were determined to have nothing resembling the
old “cordon sanitaire” in Eastern Europe.7
There was no real ambiguity about Stalin’s objectives in Eastern Eu­
rope, therefore, when Roosevelt embarked for Teheran late in Novem­
ber, 1943. Nor was there much doubt as to what the American response
would be. The President had worried over this matter for almost two
years, and had for some time realized that the United States and Great
6 Davies to Roosevelt, May 29, 1943, Roosevelt MSS, PSF 18: “Russia'*; Hickerson
to Hull, August 10, 1943, Department of State records, 840.50/2521; Bowman to
Hull, September 27, 1943, Hull MSS, Box 52, Folder 159; Leahy, I Was There, p.
185.
7 Harriman to Roosevelt, November 4, 1943, FR: Tehran, p. 154.
138 Security versus Self-Determination

Britain lacked the power to deny Stalin what he wanted. Roosevelt

would use his influence to persuade Stalin to be magnanimous, while at
the same time working to convince the East Europeans that their own
best interests lay in cooperation with the Soviet Union. But under no cir­
cumstances would the United States fight for self-determination in East­
ern Europe. The one question still unsettled was how to present this pol­
icy in the United States as anything other than a violation of the
Atlantic Charter. Charles E. Bohlen saw the dilemma clearly. The basic
underlying difficulty in Soviet-American relations, he wrote in the fall of
1943, would be convincing the American people to abandon their tradi­
tional aversion to power politics in order to secure cooperation with the
Soviet Union in the postwar world.8
W ith similar considerations in mind F.D.R., after the Teheran Confer­
ence had been under way for several days, invited Stalin to his quarters
for a private discussion relating to American politics. An election was
coming up in 1944, Roosevelt said, and while he did not want to run
again, he might have to if the war was still on. The President reminded
Stalin that there were six or seven million Polish-Americans in the
United States, and that “as a practical man he did not wish to lose their
vote.” He, personally, agreed with Stalin that the Russo-Polish border
should be moved to the west and that the Poles should obtain territorial
compensation at the expense of Germany. He hoped, however, Stalin
would understand that he could not, for political reasons, “publicly take
part in any such arrangement at the present time.” Stalin replied, reas­
suringly, that “now [that] the President [had] explained, he had un­
derstood.”
Roosevelt w ent on to say th at there were also a num ber o f Lithuani­
ans, Latvians, and Estonians in the U nited States. W hile he him self
realized th at these states had once been p art o f Russia, and while the
Am erican governm ent certainly did not intend to go to w ar to prevent
the Russians from reoccupying them , “the big issue in the U nited States,
insofar as public opinion w ent, would be the question o f referendum and
the right o f self-determ ination.” Roosevelt expressed his personal confi­
dence th at inhabitants o f the Baltic States would, in any future plebi­
scite, cheerfully ratify their own incorporation into the Soviet Union.
Stalin pointed out th at the Baltic States had enjoyed little autonomy
8 Bohlen to James C Dunn, September 7, 1943, Hull MSS, Box 52, Folder 159.
Security versus Self-Determination 139

under Nicholas II, “who had been an ally of Great Britain and the
United States,” and that no one had brought up public opinion at that
time. The Soviet leader could not quite understand why the question was
being raised now. Roosevelt replied that “the truth of the matter was
that the public neither knew nor understood.” To which Stalin re­
sponded: “They should be informed and some propaganda work should
be done.” Roosevelt now became more direct, telling Stalin that “it
would be helpful for him [Roosevelt] personally if some public declara­
tion in regard to the future elections . . . could be made.” Stalin an­
swered that there would be “plenty of opportunities for such an expres­
sion of the will of the people.” 9
It is impossible to know precisely what Stalin made of this peculiar
conversation, which represented Roosevelt's only significant statement
on the problem of Eastern Europe at Teheran. The President did make it
clear that the United States would not oppose the territorial changes
Stalin wanted, but that the Russian leader must not expect public ac­
knowledgment of this until after the 1944 campaign. Any promise of
elections or plebiscites which Stalin might give to make these changes
more acceptable to the American people would be appreciated. Roose­
velt said nothing about guaranteeing self-determination in the rest of
Eastern Europe, but it seems likely that Stalin emerged from this talk
convinced that the President's main concern would be to present Russian
policy to the American public in the most favorable light, not to secure
literal compliance with the principles of the Atlantic Charter.

n
Polish-American concern over the fate of Eastern Europe was real
enough. Congressmen with Polish-American constituencies had begun to
worry over this issue long before the Teheran Conference. Representa­
tive John Dingell of Michigan had warned Roosevelt in August, 1943,
that “we Americans are not sacrificing, fighting, and dying to make per­
manent and more powerful the Communistic Government of Russia and
to make Joseph Stalin a dictator over the liberated countries of Europe.”
9 Bohlen notes, Roosevelt-Stalin conversation, December 1, 1943, FR: Tehran, pp.
394—95.
140 Security versus Self-Determination

When Secretary of State Hull returned from the Moscow Foreign Minis­
ters’ Conference in November with no territorial guarantees for Eastern
Europe, expressions of alarm intensified. Senator John A. Danaher of
Connecticut reminded his colleagues that “there are literally thousands
upon thousands of boys of Polish extraction who . . . are fighting all
over the world in the firm belief that they are going to help restore the
pre-war borders of the homeland of their parents.” Senator Arthur H.
Vandenberg of Michigan wrote the editor of a Detroit Polish-language
newspaper that
if the Atlantic Charter means anything , it must mean a new Poland when it
says that there are to be “no territorial changes that do not accord with the
freely expressed wishes of the peoples concerned”; and when it promises to
“respect the right of all peoples to choose the form of Government under
which they will live”; and when it asserts that “sovereign rights and self-
Government are to be restored to those who have been forcibly deprived of
them.”

On November 16, ten members of the House of Representatives asked

Hull to reassure Polish-Americans that the United States would continue
to assist Poland and all other “freedom-loving nations.” 10
Polish diplomats in Washington viewed the Moscow declaration’s si­
lence on territorial questions with foreboding. Ambassador Jan Ciechan-
owski noted a strong atmosphere of private pessimism beneath the offi­
cial optimism in government circles: “I actually met with expressions of
sympathy and condolence on the part of numerous political friends.*’ An­
other Polish official compared the Moscow declaration to a doughnut,
with the hole representing the question of territory: “W hat can you do
with the central question unsolved? It should have been a cookie.” Such
expressions of anxiety took on more ominous overtones when the Office
of Strategic Services warned on November 10 that the Polish govern­
ment-in-exile planned “to mobilize political feeling in the United States
to back Polish claims against Soviet Russia.” The report said that the
Poles hoped to work among Polish-Americans, Catholics, and Middle
Westerners, that they anticipated making use of anti-British sentiment
10 Dingell to Roosevelt, August 19, 1943, Department of State records,
760C.61 /2093; Congressional Record, November 1, 1943, p. 8929; Vandenberg to
Frank Januszewski, November 6, 1943, Vandenberg MSS; congressmen to Hull, No­
vember 16, 1943, Department of State records, 740.0011 MOSCOW/278. See also
Representative B. J. Monkiewicz to Roosevelt, August 18, 1943, ibid., 760C61/2096.
Security versus Self-Determination 141

in the United States, and that they would not hesitate to seek help from
“friendly” congressmen. The apparent objective of this campaign was to
make it impossible for Roosevelt to “move in any serious way against
the Polish interest.” 11
These developments alarmed Hull, who had always resented efforts by
minority groups to influence foreign policy.1112 He warned Ciechanowski
that Polish criticism of American diplomacy was assuming a “thor­
oughly unfriendly nature” and cabled Roosevelt, then on his way to
Teheran, that the Poles were desperate and might engage in “unfortu­
nate public outbursts.” The Secretary of State assured the President that
“we are making every effort here . . . to convince the Poles, official and
unofficial, that they must take a calmer outlook and not prejudice their
case by undue public agitation regarding our policies.” 13
Early in January, 1944, the Red Army crossed Russia's prewar border
into what had been Poland. Several days later, the Soviet government is­
sued a public statement calling for a “strong and friendly Poland,” but
insisting that “Ukrainian and White Russian” lands which had been
part of Poland now become part of the Soviet Union. The Poles would
receive compensation through the return “of the ancient Polish lands
taken from Poland by the Germans.” The proclamation further warned
that the Polish government-in-exile in London had demonstrated an un­
willingness to carry on friendly relations with the USSR, and implied
that Moscow might sponsor a new and more sympathetic government in
Warsaw.14
The State Department noted shortly thereafter that its mail on the
11 Ciechanowski, Defeat in Victory, p. 228; Newsweek, XXII (November 15,
1943), 17; DeWitt C. Poole, Foreign Nationalities Branch, Office of Strategic Services,
to Adolf A. Berle, November 10, 1943, Department of State records, 760C.61/2119.
12 Hull, Memoirs, II, 1315. Hull complained bitterly against “interfering minori­
ties“ who, “aided by the improvement of methods for diffusing information and prop­
aganda, have raised a voice and exerted a pressure in foreign affairs far out of pro­
portion to their numbers. . . . On many occasions, when the international relations of
our Government require the most delicate and careful handling . . . , some of these
groups scatter poison or otherwise play havoc with them.“ {Ibid,, II, 1738.)
13 Hull memorandum of conversation with Ciechanowski, November 19, 1943, FR:
1943, III, 484—85; Hull to Roosevelt, November 23, 1943, FR: Tehran, p. 384. Cie­
chanowski, in his account of the November 19 meeting, does not mention the Secre­
tary of States warnings against domestic Polish agitation. {Defeat in Victory, pp.
234-43.)
14Harriman to Hull, January 11, 1944, FR: 1944, III, 1218—20.
142 Security versus Self-Determination

Polish question had increased sharply, as had petitions on the subject ad­
dressed to Congress. Most of this material came from individuals of Pol­
ish descent or from Polish-American organizations. On January 6, the
chairman of the National Council of Americans of Polish Descent wrote
to Roosevelt that American acquiescence in Russia’s decision “to keep
her share of the loot grabbed with Hitler” could only be interpreted as
“a sign of approval and coresponsibility.” Representative Joseph Mmk of
New York warned Roosevelt one week later that if Russia absorbed
eastern Poland the war would be “lost idealistically and morally—
even before we have been able finally to win it militarily.” Congress­
man John Lesinski of Michigan told a meeting of Polish-Americans in
Detroit that if Stalin was allowed “to gobble up Poland” he would take
all of Europe as well.15
In March, 1944, a group of Polish-American leaders decided to form
a nationwide movement embracing every major Polish organization in
the United States. Coordinating committees were established in Detroit,
Chicago, New York, and other centers of Polish-American strength for
the purpose of electing 4,000 delegates to a Polish-American congress, to
be held in Buffalo at the end of May. Each delegate was to contribute
$25.00 to support the congress’ work. White House assistant Dayid K.
Niles, who wrote a lengthy report on the affair for Roosevelt, noted
with professional admiration that the congress would “go down in his­
tory as the most colossal piece of organizational work. There is really
something to learn from the Poles in the manner this congress was cre­
ated.”
The principal aim of the ostensibly nonpartisan congress was to mar­
shal Polish-American opinion in opposition to any new partition of Po­
land. But Niles noted that the main organizers of the congress, Charles
Rozmarek of Chicago, Frank Januszewski, publisher of the Detroit Pol­
ish Daily News, and Michael F. Wegrzynek, chairman of the National
Council of Americans of Polish Descent, were all Republicans. Leaders
of the congress received advice and support, though apparently not finan­
cial assistance, from the Polish government-in-exile, the American Cath-
15 “Public Attitudes on Foreign Policy,“ report no. 13, February 29, 1944, Depart­
ment of State records, 711.00 PUBLIC ATTITUDES/7A; M. F. Wegrzynek to Roose­
velt, January 6, 1944, printed in Congressional Record, 1944 appendix, p. A158;
Mruk to Roosevelt, January 14, 1944, Roosevelt MSS, OF 463-A, Box 4; Lesinski
speech of January 30, 1944, copy, ibid.
Security versus Self-Determination 143

olic hierarchy, and several isolationist members of the United States

Congress. At the congress* first meeting in Buffalo moderate groups pre­
vented the passage of resolutions directly critical of the Roosevelt Ad­
ministration. But Niles warned that there was “terrific resentment
against the Administration” among leading Polish-Americans “which
will eventually crystalize in some unfriendly form.” 16
The possible impact of Polish-American disaffection on the forthcom­
ing election clearly worried Administration officials. As early as Febru­
ary, Oscar Cox had advised Harry Hopkins that Polish-Americans might
desert the Democratic Party, and in the process “start enough of a rum­
pus to swing over other groups before November of 1944/* During the
spring the White House received thousands of printed postcards, all of
them urging Roosevelt to oppose “the fourth partition of Poland/* On
May 3, Polish Constitution Day, some 140 congressmen inserted into the
Congressional Record material on Poland, much of it furnished by Pol­
ish-American groups, calling for application of the Atlantic Charter to
the Russo-Polish controversy. Assistant Secretary of State Breckinridge
Long noted later that month that it would be difficult to solve the
boundary dispute between Russia and Poland in such a way as to satisfy
the Polish-Americans, who might well hold the balance of political
power in states like Illinois, Ohio, New York, and Pennsylvania.17
Because of the sensitive political situation, propaganda activities of
the Polish government-in-exile caused special anxiety in Washington.
Joseph E. Davies complained that the London Poles were constantly dis­
tributing expensive propaganda booklets in the United States and that
they “would readily pay thousands of dollars to throw a monkey-wrench
into American public opinion against Russia.** Isador Lubin, an aide to
Harry Hopkins, noted with concern the appearance of several articles in
the Detroit Polish-language press calling on Polish-Americans not to
16 Memorandum by Niles, May 26, 1944, Roosevelt MSS, PSF: "Poland.’* See also
Department of State, “Fortnightly Survey of American Opinion,*' No. 5, June 21,
1944; and Joseph A. Wytrwal, America's Polish Heritage: A Social History o f the
Poles in America, pp. 262—63. Niles later wrote to Grace Tully: “I think we sort of
handled the Buffalo conference so that we pulled some of the fangs out of it.’’ (Niles
to Tully, June 6, 1944, Roosevelt MSS, PSF: “Poland.*’)
17 Cox to Hopkins, February 7, 1944, Hopkins MSS, Box 324; postcards in Roose­
velt MSS, OF 463, Box 1; Department of State, “Fortnightly Survey of American
Opinion,*' No. 3, May 19, 1944; Long Diary, June 13, 1944, Israel, ed., Long Diary,
p. 354.
144 Security versus Self-Determination

contribute their “sweat” to lend-lease production for Russia. At Roose­

velt’s request Lubin submitted to him several pamphlets critical of
American and British policy put out by the Polish Information Center
which had, Lubin observed indignantly, received financial assistance
from the American government. Concern over this matter was great
enough to cause both Roosevelt and the State Department to warn Pol­
ish Prime Minister Stanislaw Mikolajczyk against holding public meet­
ings with Polish-American groups when he visited the United States in
June of 1944.18
During his conversations with Mikolajczyk, President Roosevelt re­
peatedly stressed the need for the London Poles to work out a reconcilia­
tion with the Soviet Union. There were five times as many Russians as
Poles, the President said, “and let me tell you now, the British and the
Americans have no intention of fighting Russia.” Roosevelt observed
that if he were in the position of the Poles, he would agree to territorial
concessions and changes in the make-up of the Polish government. Sta­
lin, he assured Mikolajczyk, had no intention of extinguishing Polish lib­
erty, if for no other reason than that this would alienate American pub­
lic opinion. The President urged the Polish prime minister to meet with
Stalin personally, because “in this political year I cannot approach Stalin
with a new initiative about Poland.” 19
The President’s assurances to Mikolajczyk represented no change from
his previous position. The Poles would have to accept territorial changes,
but Roosevelt hoped the pressure of world opinion would moderate So­
viet demands. Shortly before Mikolajczyk arrived in Washington, Roose­
velt instructed Harriman to tell Stalin that the Polish problem “will be
kept out of ‘politics’ ” and to express the hope “that the Soviets would
give the Poles ‘a break.’ ” When Harriman conveyed this information to
Molotov, the Russian foreign minister interrupted to ask whether Roose-
18 Davies Journal, April 25, 1944, Davies MSS, Box 14; Lubin to Dean Acheson,
April 3, 1944, Department of State records, 760C.61 /2287; Lubin to Roosevelt, June
5, 1944, Roosevelt MSS, PSF: “Poland'’; James C. Dunn to Edward R. Stettinius, Jr.,
May 24, 1944, FR: 1944, IV, 874; Bohlen memorandum of conversation with Cie-
chanowski. May 24, 1944, ibid., Ill, 1272.
19 The fullest account of the Roosevelt-Mikolajczyk conversations is in Ciechan-
owski, Defeat in Victory, but see also Mikolajczyk’s record of the talks, in Edward J.
Rozek, Allied Wartime Diplomacy: The Pattern in Poland, pp. 220—21; Stanislaw Mi­
kolajczyk, The Rape o f Poland, pp. 59—60; and Stettinius calendar notes, June 7,
1944, Stettinius MSS, Box 240.
Security versus Self-Determination 145

velt’s attitude was still the same as that expressed at Teheran. Harriman
replied, “of course,” and Molotov said that Stalin would be gratified to
hear this news.20
The Russian leader made his own abortive effort to improve relations
with Polish-Americans in the spring of 1944 when he personally invited
the Reverend Stanislaus Orlemanski, an obscure parish priest from
Springfield, Massachusetts, to visit the Soviet Union. Orlemanski's efforts
in helping to organize the pro-Soviet Kosciusko Polish Patriotic League
in the United States had apparently led Stalin to believe, with wild inac­
curacy, that Orlemanski represented Polish-American opinion. The Mas­
sachusetts priest received a cordial welcome in Moscow, and enjoyed a
two-hour talk with Stalin and Molotov. The Russian dictator promised
Orlemanski that he would not interfere in Polish internal affairs after
the war, that he would allow freedom of religion in the Soviet Union,
and that it might even be possible for the Kremlin to cooperate with the
Vatican. Both the American chargé d'affaires in Moscow and an Office
of Strategic Services representative who interviewed Orlemanski upon
his return felt that Stalin's comments represented a sincere bid to im­
prove relations with Poland, Polish-Americans, and the Catholic
Church.21
Whatever Stalin's intentions were with regard to the Orlemanski
visit, they backfired. The priest's trip provoked violent objections from
the Polish government-in-exile, the Polish-American community, and
American Catholics. Ambassador Ciechanowski informed the State De­
partment that his government viewed the affair with “the greatest con­
cern and disappointment.” Michael J. Ready, general secretary of the
National Catholic Welfare Conference, charged that Orlemanski's trip
was “like other missions to Moscow, . . . a political burlesque, staged
and directed by capable Soviet agents.” Congressman Dingell told the
20Stettinius memorandum of conversation with Harriman, May 23, 1944, FR:
19441 IV, 873—74; Harriman to Roosevelt, June 7, 1944, ibid., Ill, 1276—77.
21 On Orlemanski's visit to Moscow, see FR: 1944, III, 1398—99, 1402—11, IV,
868—69; Hull, Memoirs, II, 1442—44; and Werth, Russia at War, pp. 844—47. The
estimates of Stalin's intentions are in Maxwell M. Hamilton to Hull, May 9, 1944,
FR: 1944, IV, 869; and a memorandum by DeWitt C. Poole of conversations with
Orlemanski on May 15—16, 1944, Department of State records, 760C.61/2334. Stalin
also invited Professor Oscar Lange of the University of Chicago, a native of Poland, to
come to Moscow at this time. Lange later became the postwar Polish government's
first ambassador to the United States.
146 Security versus Self-Determination

House of Representatives that Orlemanski had "soiled his sacerdotal

robes of priesthood to kowtow to Stalin and to others who betrayed the
Polish people and the Roman Catholic Church into the hands of their
enemies.” The crowning blow came when Orlemanski’s bishop repri­
manded him for making the trip without permission.22 President Roose­
velt found Orlemanski’s account of his talk with Stalin "extremely inter­
esting” and expressed a desire to talk with the priest "off the record,”
but Secretary of State Hull, still smarting under a barrage of criticism,
cast cold water on the idea. So ended one of the more curious episodes in
wartime Soviet-American relations.23
Meanwhile, Republicans were preparing to capitalize on the discon­
tent of ethnic minorities with the Administration’s foreign policy. Sena­
tor Vandenberg saw the potentialities of the issue clearly. He proposed
to Thomas E. Dewey late in March, 1944, that the Republican plat­
form’s foreign policy plank incorporate the language of the Atlantic
Charter "because this is the point at which the Roosevelt Administration
is deserting the hopes and prayers of all our American nationals from
Poland, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, etc.” Vandenberg opposed
making definite promises to the Poles "because our current defaults to
Mr. Stalin are rapidly putting him in ‘the driver’s seat.* ” It would be
difficult to make any specific pledge on Poland "which would actually be
worth the paper it is written on.” But the senator added: "There is no
doubt in my mind . . . that Polish voters will be more responsive to us
this Fall than in many years.” 24
22 James G Dunn memorandum of conversation with Ciechanowski, May 2, 1944,
FR: 1944, III, 1407; New York Times, May 1, 1944; Congressional Record, May 3,
1944, p. 3931; Poole memorandum of conversation with Orlemanski, May 27, 1944,
Roosevelt MSS, PSF: “Poland/* Orlemanski told Poole that he had not talked with his
bishop since his return from Moscow, but “the parish had just bought a fine new bell.
Maybe the bishop would come and bless it and then everything would be fine again/'
(Ibid.)
23 Roosevelt to Hull, May 31, 1944, Department of State records, 760C.61/2334;
Hull to Roosevelt, June 2, 1944, ibid. When Mikolajczyk was in Washington Roose­
velt mentioned Orlemanski’s report to him, suggesting the rather breathtaking possi­
bility that, since Stalin obviously had no desire to assume the tsars’ old position as
head of the Russian Orthodox Church, he might favor a reunion of the Russian Or­
thodox and Roman Catholic Churches under the leadership of the Pope. (Ciechan­
owski, Defeat in Victory, pp. 308—9.)
24 Vandenberg to Dewey, March 30, 1944, and Milton Carmichael, April 29,1944,
Vandenberg MSS. See also Newsweek, XXIII (May 1, 1944), 29—30.
Security versus Self-Determination 147

Dewey himself avoided dealing with the Polish issue explicitly during
the campaign, confining his remarks instead to the need to be “fair and
upright in our dealings with the smaller nations.“ He did criticize the
“dim secrecy” surrounding Roosevelt’s negotiations on Poland, but ad­
mitted that “Poland has had differences with Russia that go deep into
history and for which there’s no simple solution.” In a series of discreet
conversations with Republican leaders in October, however, Ambassador
Ciechanowski did obtain private expressions of sympathy for the Polish
position. Herbert Hoover told Ciechanowski that Roosevelt had double-
crossed the Poles at Teheran, and that their only hope was to appeal to
American public opinion. John Foster Dulles promised the Polish am­
bassador that he would try to win Dewey’s support for the Polish cause,
and Dewey himself informed Ciechanowski that he disliked Roosevelt’s
acquiescent Polish policy and would, if elected, take a firmer position
against Soviet demands.25
Democratic political leaders, already concerned about the outcome of
the election, found Republican activity among Polish-Americans increas­
ingly alarming. Representative George C. Sadowski of Michigan ob­
served that “the Republicans are wringing their hands and shedding
crocodile tears for poor Poland.” Senator Joseph C. O’Mahoney of Wyo­
ming sent word to Samuel Rosenman that many Polish-Americans in Il­
linois and Ohio were “emotionally disturbed.” The secretary of the Pol-
ish-American Businessmen’s Association of Chicago wrote plaintively to
Roosevelt that
it is really hard to talk to some of our people. And elections are coming
soon. Will you kindly talk to your friends, Messrs. Winston Churchill and
Joseph Stalin, and really do something substantial, and soon, for those poor
suffering Polish souls in Poland? We have here at least 300,000 Polish votes.
There are millions of Polish votes all over [the] USA, and it is hard to talk
to them. . . . Will you kindly take this trouble under your consideration?
25 New York Times, September 9, October 9 and 18, 1944; Ciechanowski reports
to Mikolajczyk of conversations with Hoover on October 6 and 20, Dulles on October
20, and Dewey on October 8, 1944, cited in Rozek, Allied Wartime Diplomacy, pp.
300—1. Ciechanowski later wrote: "I was frequently asked by various campaign manag­
ers, and especially by election agents of the New Deal, what I thought would be the
most appropriate way to obtain the support of what they called ‘the Polish vote* for
the Democratic machine. Of course I steadily refused to discuss these matters." {Defeat
in Victory, p. 347.)
148 Security versus Self-Determination

Convinced that Roosevelt would have to do something to neutralize Pol-

ish-American criticism, Attorney General Frances Biddle suggested that
the President meet briefly with a delegation from the Polish-American
Congress and “say something that would hearten the Poles.” Other
Democratic leaders enthusiastically seconded the proposal. Senator Jo­
seph Guffey asked Roosevelt to receive the delegation because “it will
help us greatly in Pennsylvania.” Mayor Edward J. Kelly of Chicago
told Democratic National Committee chairman Robert Hannegan that
while the general situation in Illinois was good, he was worried about
the Poles and considered it “absolutely imperative that the President ar­
range immediately to see the group of Polish leaders.” 26
Roosevelt yielded to the importunings of his advisers and received the
Poles at the W hite House on Pulaski Day, October 11, 1944. Charles
Rozmarek, president of the Polish-American Congress, asked the Presi­
dent for assurance that he would prevent imposition of a puppet regime
on Poland and would oppose forced transfers of populations there. Roo­
sevelt replied blandly that “you and I are agreed that Poland must be re­
constituted as a great nation” and assured the Polish-Americans that
“world opinion” would back up that objective. While this interview pro­
duced little information that could encourage the Polish-Americans, it
did at least relieve the anxieties of Democratic politicians. Roosevelt saw
Rozmarek again in Chicago on October 28. Following this interview
Rozmarek endorsed the President for reelection, because “he assured me
that . . . he will see to it that Poland is treated justly at the peace
conference.” 27
Election results showed Democratic anxieties about the Polish vote to
have been highly exaggerated. One report, prepared for the Democratic
National Committee, estimated that 90 percent of Polish-American vot­
ers remained within the Roosevelt coalition. Rozmarek’s last-minute en­
dorsement of Roosevelt appeared in retrospect as an effort to save face
26 Sherwood, Roosevelt and Hopkins, pp. 819—20; Congressional Record, May 3,
1944, p. 3940; record of telephone conversation with O’Mahoney, October, 1944, Ro-
senman MSS, Ms. 62—4, Box 2, Roosevelt Library; Frank Nurczyk to Roosevek, Sep­
tember 13, 1944, Roosevelt MSS, OF 463-A, Box 4; Biddle to Roosevelt, September
28 and October 7, 1944, ibid,, OF 463-A, Box 1; Guffey to Roosevelt, October 7,
1944, ibid,; Hannegan to Edwin M. Watson, October 7, 1944, ibid,
27 White House press release, October 11, 1944, Roosevelt MSS, OF 463-A, Box 1;
New York Times, October 29, 1944.
Security versus Self-Determination 149

once leaders of the Polish-American Congress realized they could not

swing the Polish vote to Dewey. In a post-mortem on the election Frank
Januszewski, vice-president of the congress, complained to Senator Van-
denberg that the Republican Party had directed its attack against the
New Deal, which had been good to Polish-Americans, not against the
diplomacy of the Roosevelt Administration. Vandenberg himself per­
ceived an even greater difficulty. The tragedy of the situation, he wrote
to Januszewski, was “that we cannot prove that they [the Poles] have
been ‘sold down the river* (if they have) and we cannot conscientiously
promise them that they can rely upon us for a better deal when we col­
lide with Stalin at the Peace Table.” 28
Attempts to employ ethnic voting to influence the 1944 election prob­
ably harmed more than they helped Poland's interests. Promises to with­
hold or deliver the Polish-American vote distracted the Roosevelt
Administration's attention from the question of Poland itself to the
problem of appeasing Polish-American leaders.29 They also contributed
to the obsessive cautiousness which paralyzed Roosevelt's East European
policy in 1944, preventing badly needed efforts to tell the American
people what kind of peace settlement they could expect in that part of
the world.

Ill
But Roosevelt's concern over political retaliation from Polish-Americans
was not the only reason why he felt unable to prepare the American
people for postwar developments in Eastern Europe. Key senators, many
of them former isolationists, had made it clear that they would support
American membership in the new world organization only if the peace
settlement reflected the principles of the Atlantic Charter. Any indica­
tions that the big powers were preparing to divide Europe up into
spheres of influence might be as damaging to the United Nations as the
28 Report by Press Research, Inc., on the Polish lobby, June 4, 1945, copy in Dem­
ocratic National Committee records, Box 155, Truman Library; Januszewski to Van­
denberg, November 22, 1944, Vandenberg MJS; Vandenberg to Januszewski, October
31, 1944, ibid.
29 Louis L. Gerson, The Hyphenate in Recent American Politics and Diplomacy, p.
140.
150 Security versus Self-Determination

Allies’ World War I secret agreements had been to the League of Na­
tions. Full disclosure of Soviet intentions in Eastern Europe could well
wreck the domestic consensus which Roosevelt regarded as necessary for
successful prosecution of the war, and provoke a return to isolationism
once peace had come.
The Senate had already passed a resolution early in November, 1943,
calling for “the United States, acting through its constitutional processes,
[to] join with free and sovereign nations in the establishment and
maintenance of international authority with power to prevent aggression
and to preserve the peace of the world.” Approval of this innocuous
statement, proposed by Chairman Tom Connally of the Foreign Rela­
tions Committee after prodding from internationalists, was never in
doubt. In the course of the debate, however, several former isolationists
expressed concern over Soviet intentions in Eastern Europe. Senators
Robert R. Reynolds and Edwin C. Johnson proposed amending the Con­
nally resolution to guarantee the postwar independence and territorial
integrity of that area. “If the Atlantic Charter means what it says,”
Johnson intoned, “and if our ideals of justice and freedom . . . are not
pure flimflam, then my resolution is in order and timely.” 30
The views of Reynolds and Johnson hardly represented a majority po­
sition in the Senate, as the 85-to-5 vote in favor of the unamended Con­
nally resolution showed.31 But their action reflected a growing tendency
on the part of old isolationists to make incorporation of the Atlantic
Charter into the peace settlement their price for supporting American
membership in the new international organization. Since the opposition
of only 33 senators could keep the United States out of the United Na­
tions, Roosevelt Administration officials could not afford to ignore this
development.
Secretary of State Hull, whose department had assumed chief responsi­
bility for planning the United Nations, understood the danger clearly
enough. Early in 1944 he cabled Ambassador Harriman that he was
“much disturbed” by the Soviet government’s approach to the Polish
problem. The Russians should understand that American support for an
international organization would depend upon Moscow’s willingness “to
30 Congressional Record, November 1 and 2, 1943, pp. 8939—40, 9006.
31 For the debate over the Connally resolution, see Divine, Second Chance pp.
147-54.
Security versus Self-Determination 151

abandon unilateralism and to seek its ends by free and frank discussion
with a Polish Government that is not hand-picked.” If the Soviet Union
insisted on imposing a puppet government in Poland, Americans would
interpret this as a regression to power politics. Such action would seri­
ously affect the Senate's attitude toward the new collective security organ­
ization. If “some authorized person or official in Russia [could] reiter­
ate fairly often Russia's interest in . . . the movement of international
cooperation,” Hull later told Soviet Ambassador Andrei Gromyko, this
would “help to clear the air.” Time and time again during the first half
of 1944 Hull urged upon the patient but noncommittal Gromyko the
need for the Soviet Union to seek its objectives through cooperation and
consultation with its allies, not through unilateral action.32
Hull's admonitions had little apparent effect on the Russians, but his
concern over public opinion did appear to be well founded. At the time
of the Moscow Conference in November, 1943, surveys indicated that 54
percent of Americans thought that Russia could be trusted to cooperate
with the United States after the war. But by the end of January, 1944,
this figure had declined to 42 percent. Even allowing for the usual mar­
gin of error, this poll demonstrated, as a State Department analyst
noted, “a significant decline in public confidence in Russian cooperation
after the war.” Even more ominously, a National Opinion Research Cen­
ter poll, released in December, 1943, showed that while “a majority of
the American public believes that following the war Russia will not be
content with her pre-war boundaries, . . . a majority also believes that
Russia should not extend them.” Considerable doubt existed as to how
the United States should respond to this situation— 39 percent of the
sample thought Washington should try to stop the Soviet Union from
taking territory which belonged to Poland before the war, while 38 per­
cent opposed this— but the evidence was clear that Americans would
not look favorably upon Soviet violations of self-determination in East­
ern Europe.33
32 Hull to Harriman, January 25, 1944, FR: 1944, III, 1234—35; Hull memoranda
of conversations with Gromyko on March 11, 19, 29, April 13, 20, May 7, and June
1, 1944, Hull MSS, Box 61, Folder 250, FR: 1944, IV, 854, Department of State rec­
ords, 760C.61 /2298. See also Hull to Harriman, December 23, 1943, FR: 1943, III,
611—12; idem, January 15 and February 9, 1944, FR: 1944, III, 1228—29, IV,
824-26.
33 "‘Public Attitudes on Foreign Policy,” reports No. 6, December 21, 1943, and
152 Security versus Self-Determination

Criticism of Russian "unilateralism” in the Senate reflected the grow­

ing public concern. Styles Bridges of New Hampshire questioned
whether the United States was trying to restrain those of its allies “who
might have territorial or power ambitions.” “I have seemed to sense,”
Bridges warned, "a gradual drifting away from the principles of the At­
lantic Charter.” Harlan Bushfield of South Dakota observed that for a
thousand years Russian rulers had dreamed of acquiring a warm-water
outlet to the sea. "Today is Russia’s opportunity. Does anyone doubt that
she will make the most of it?” Burton K. Wheeler of Montana told his
colleagues that, despite the fact that sympathy for the Soviet Union had
“grown tremendously” in recent years, if Russia overran Poland, Fin­
land, the Baltic and Balkan States, public sentiment would change very
rapidly.*34
Secretary of State Hull was, at this time, quietly trying to get Senate
leaders to approve the State Department’s plans for an international or­
ganization. Fears that the Big Three had already settled the main fea­
tures of the peace in secret led Senator Arthur H. Vandenberg, a key Re­
publican member of the Foreign Relations Committee, to inform Hull
that the Senate could not endorse the department’s program without
knowing what the terms of the peace settlement would be. Otherwise,
senators would be signing "the most colossal 'blank check’ in history.”
Vandenberg wrote in his diary:
Over all these negotiations . . . hung the shadow of a doubt as to whether
we (or even Hull himself) was in possession of full information as to what
peace terms may have already been agreed upon between Roosevelt, Stalin
and Churchill. . . . We all believe in Hull. But none of us is sure that Hull
knows the whole story.
Allen Drury, a congressional correspondent for the United Press, ob­
served that "the fatal cleavage in government” which had ruined Wood-
row Wilson’s plans for the League of Nations was developing again.
No. 12, February 21, 1944, Department of State records, 711.00 PUBLIC
ATTITUDES/6, 7A. See also Cantril and Strunk, eds., Public Opinion, p. 1169; and
Bruner, Mandate from the People, pp. 121—22. Samuel Rosenman submitted the re­
sults of the January, 1944, poll to Roosevelt on February 17, 1944. (Roosevelt MSS,
OF 857, Box 3.)
34 Congressional Record, January 14, March 7, April 21, May 3, 1944, pp. 186,
2302, 3623-24, 3888.
Security versus Self-Determination 153

“Congress just doesn't like to be hoodwinked, bypassed, patronized, lied

to, or affronted in the field of foreign policy." 35
Publication in May of a two-part Saturday Evening Post article by
Forrest Davis giving Roosevelt’s account of the Teheran Conference fur­
ther increased tension in the Senate. The article abounded in careless
phrases sure to arouse senatorial ire. Davis pictured Roosevelt as “gam­
bling” that the Soviet Union would be willing to collaborate with the
West, a policy “bordering at times on what has been termed appease­
ment.” The account stressed F.D.R.’s repeated and patient attempts to
make friends with Stalin, and revealed for the first time publicly the
concept of the Four Policemen. All of this served to confirm the suspi­
cions of senators who believed that the Big Three had already drawn the
major outlines of the peace settlement. Robert A. Taft of Ohio accused
the President of basing his policy “on the delightful theory that Mr. Sta­
lin in the end will turn out to have an angelic nature.” Vandenberg
wrote that “if the Post articles are right,. . . all the ideology of the A t­
lantic Charter’ is already ‘out the window.’ ” 36
Hull eventually secured cautious oral approval of the State Depart­
ment’s plans for international organization from Senate leaders, but he
failed to get the written commitment he had hoped to use to dispel
doubts about congressional willingness to join the new organization.
Senatorial suspicion of Roosevelt’s secret diplomacy at Teheran, particu­
larly with regard to Eastern Europe, was primarily responsible for the
tentative nature of this commitment. Representatives of the United
States, the Soviet Union, Great Britain, and China, meeting at Dumbar­
ton Oaks from August through October, 1944, also endorsed the key fea­
tures of the department’s plans, leaving unresolved only the questions of
voting procedure in the Security Council and the Soviet Union’s demand
35 Vandenberg to Hull, May 3, 1944, Vandenberg, ed.. Private Papers, pp. 97-98;
Vandenberg Diary, May 23, 1944, ibid., pp. 101—2; Drury Diary, May 8, 1944, Allen
Drury, A Senate Journal: 1943—1945, p. 162.
36 Forrest Davis, “W hat Really Happened at Teheran,“ Saturday Evening Post,
CCXVI (May 13 and 20, 1944), 13 ff., 22 ff.; Taft radio address of June 8, 1944,
Congressional Record, 1944 appendix, p. A2901; Vandenberg Diary, May 26, 1944,
Vandenberg, ed., Private Papers, pp. 103—4. See also Israel, ed., Long Diary, pp. 348,
356. Edgar Snow asked Roosevelt on May 26, 1944, whether Davis* articles had accu­
rately reflected his views. Roosevelt replied: “Yes, Forrest did a good job.’* (Snow,
“Fragments from F.D.R.,*’ p. 400.)
154 Security versus Self-Determination

for multiple votes in the General Assembly. But agreement on the organ­
izational structure of the future United Nations did not necessarily en­
sure Senate approval. Vandenberg wrote early in the fall of 1944: ‘The
nature of the peace—whether it is calculated to be just and equitable
— has an important bearing upon the nature and extent of our commit­
ment to forever underwrite its terms.” 37
Cordell Hull finally retired as secretary of state at the end of Novem­
ber, 1944, after heading the Department of State for twice as long as
any other man. Sick, tired, and bitter over long years of being bypassed
by the President, the Secretary could take comfort in the flood of piaise
he received from colleagues in government, the press, and the public.
One editorial in Life, however, struck a discordant note. It recalled
Hull’s “big moment” when he had stood before Congress in 1943 prom­
ising that “there will no longer be need for spheres of influence, for alli­
ances, for balance of power, or any other of the special arrangements
. . . of the unhappy past.” “But who believes that?” Life asked: “Not
the heads of the governments of Russia, Britain, France, or even the U.S.
Things aren’t working out that way. The old chasm between words and
events, which characterized so much of the Hull era, still yawns,” 38
Life's bluntness reflected a growing awareness in the United States to­
ward the end of 1944 that the gap between the realities of the peace set­
tlement and the principles of the Atlantic Charter was indeed going to
be large.
Unilateral British and Russian actions in Eastern Europe intensified
this sense of uneasiness. Churchill’s hostility to the emergence of left-
wing governments in liberated countries became painfully obvious with
his forcible suppression of the Greek uprising in December, 1944. At the
same time, the Russians were moving toward establishment of a puppet
government in Poland, a process completed with Soviet recognition of
the Lublin regime early in 1945. Ironically British actions in Greece
aroused the greater amount of concern in the United States. The con­
frontation there was sharper than in Poland, and, according to opinion
37 Divine, Second Chance, pp. 200—3, 220—28; Vandenberg to Mrs. John K. Or­
mond, September 30, 1944, Vandenberg MSS.
38 “Mr. Hull,” Life, XVII (December 11, 1944), 26. See also Pratt, Cordell Hull,
II, 765—66; and Israel, ed.. Long Diary, p. 388.
Security versus Self-Determination 155

polls, Americans distrusted Britain more than they did Russia.39 But
both cases demonstrated a disturbing Anglo-Russian tendency to divide
postwar Europe into spheres of influence— a tendency which the
United States was doing nothing to stop.
President Roosevelt accidentally aggravated the situation by casually
revealing at a press conference on December 19, 1944, that he and
Churchill had never actually signed the Atlantic Charter. F.D.R. imme­
diately realized his mistake and at his next press conference stressed that
the ideals of the Charter were more important than whether a signed
document existed. But the damage had already been done. News that
the Charter had not been signed came as a shock to a nation accustomed
to placing great faith in written documents. Senator Vandenberg, a good
judge of such matters, proclaimed that Roosevelt’s statement had “jarred
America to its very hearthstones.” 40
Much of the criticism Roosevelt received now came from his own sup­
porters. The President’s new secretary of state, Edward R. Stettinius, Jr.,
had already angered liberals by filling high State Department positions
with such establishment figures as Joseph C. Grew, William L. Clayton,
James C. Dunn, and Nelson A. Rockefeller. Roosevelt’s cavalier dis­
missal of the Atlantic Charter, together with British and Russian actions
in Eastern Europe, convinced many liberals that the ideals of the war
had been abandoned. Edgar Ansel Mowrer, columnist for the New York
Post, accused Roosevelt of compromises, postponements, and evasions:
“Yet still unrepentantly he wisecracks, he postures, he ducks, he does ev­
erything but come clean and tell the country what he is up to.” Former
Undersecretary of State Sumner Welles criticized the apparent lack of
unity among the Allies, and called upon Roosevelt to assert bold leader­
ship. Allen Drury charged Roosevelt with “four years of sloppy diplo­
macy, personal intrigue and tin-horn politicking on a world-wide
scale.” 41
39 Stettinius to Roosevelt, “American Opinion on Recent European Developments,”
December 30, 1944, Roosevelt MSS, PSF 30: “Stettinius.” This survey of public opin­
ion indicated that of the one-third of the public dissatisfied with the extent of Big
Three cooperation, 54 percent blamed Britain while only 18 percent blamed Russia.
40 New York Times, December 20, 22, 1944; Congressional Record, January 10,
1945, p. 166.
41 Time, XLV (JanuarY 8, 1945), 13; Drury Diary, December 17, 1944, Drury,
156 Security versus Self-Determination

In the Senate, isolationists like Burton K. Wheeler no longer found

themselves alone when they warned that the United States would not
join the world organization unless Russia and Britain changed their pol­
icies. Even such a dedicated internationalist as Senator Joseph Ball of
Minnesota was worried: “If the present trend of unilateral decisions by
the Allied nations in the liberated areas of Europe continues, it may do
irreparable damage to the principles of international collaboration set
forth in the Dumbarton Oaks proposals.” With Senators Harold Burton,
Carl Hatch, and Lister Hill, Ball proposed that the Senate set standards
in advance for the kind of peace settlement it would accept. Perfection­
ism, Joseph E. Davies observed in his diary, was proving to be just as
dangerous to international cooperation as isolationism: “The altruistic
impulse among some of our ablest public men [which] insists upon a
perfect structure of World Peace” failed to take into account such ob­
vious “facts of life” as Russian insistence on friendly governments in
Eastern Europe, British requirements for control of important sea-lanes,
and even American demands for postwar strategic bases in the Pa­
cific.*42
The President had hoped to get the Senate to approve membership in
the United Nations before explosive situations like Poland and Greece
could come up, the New Republics knowledgeable “TRB" wrote early in
1945, but now “the fat is in the fire.” For whatever reason, whether in­
timidation by Polish-Americans, concern over the Senate, or declining
health,43 Roosevelt had not prepared the American people for the kind
of peace settlement which he knew would be necessary in Eastern Eu­
rope. George F. Kennan, then counselor at the American Embassy in
Moscow, saw the problem clearly. The Soviets, he wrote to Ambassador
Senate Journal, p. 313. On Stettinius’ State Department appointments, see Sherwood,
Roosevelt and Hopkins, pp. 837—38; and Divine, Second Chance, pp. 253—55. The
appointment of a poet, Archibald MacLeish, as assistant secretary of state for public
and cultural relations failed to placate outraged liberals.
42 Drury, Senate Journal, p. 318; New York Times, December 26, 1944; Davies
Journal, December 9, 1944, Davies MSS, Box 15.
43 On this matter, see Herman E. Bateman, "Observations on President Roosevelt's
Health During World W ar II,” Mississippi Valley Historical Review, XLIII (June,
1956), 82—102; and the important new information in Howard G. Bruenn, "Clinical
Notes on the Illness and Death of President Franklin D. Roosevelt,” Annals o f Inter­
nal Medicine, LXXII (April, 1970), 579—91. See also the New Republic, CXII (Janu­
ary 8, 1945), 51. Since 1943 ”TRB” has been Richard L. Strout.
Security versus Self-Determination 157

Harriman, had never stopped thinking in terms of spheres of influence.

The American people,
for reasons which we do not need to go into, have not been aware of this
quality of Soviet thought, and have been allowed to hope that the Soviet
government would be prepared to enter into an international security organ,
ization with truly universal power to prevent aggression. We are now faced
with the prospect of having our people disabused of this illusion.4 4
Such were the unhappy circumstances in which the Roosevelt Adminis­
tration began planning for the next meeting of the Big Three, at which
there would have to take place a settlement of East European questions
which both the Soviet Union and the American public could accept.

IV
The President’s advisers had public opinion much on their minds as they
prepared for Yalta. A summary of opinion polls sent to Roosevelt early
in January, 1945, concluded that recent events “have increased public
skepticism concerning the ability of the major powers to live up to the
ideals of the Atlantic Charter and the United Nations.” Another analysis
prepared for the President by Secretary of State Stettinius called atten­
tion to “a significant decline in public confidence in the conduct of our
foreign policy in the past six months.” 45 Concern over this matter af­
fected Administration planning on the two critical East European issues
with which the Big Three would have to deal: the question of bounda­
ries, and the problem of who was to govern the countries of this area.
F.D.R.’s tacit approval of Stalin’s territorial claims at Teheran had, for
all practical purposes, settled the boundary problem in advance. The
President’s counselors continued to support the wisdom of this decision.
Bernard Baruch, never one to withhold advice, wrote Roosevelt that Sta­
lin’s demand for Polish territory was understandable because the Rus­
sians feared Germany. It would be useless “to demand of Russia what
44Kennan to Harriman, December 19, 1944, quoted in Kennan, Memoirs, p. 222.
See also Brooks Emeny to John Foster Dulles, December 22, 1944, Dulles MSS; and
Joseph M. Jones, The Fifteen Weeks, pp. 102—3.
45 Hadley Cantril to Grace Tully, January 11, 1945, Roosevelt MSS, OF 857, Box
3; Stettinius to Roosevelt, December 30, 1944, i b i d PSF 30: “Stettinius/'
158 Security versus Self-Determination

she thinks she needs and most of which she now possesses.” Secretaiy of
W ar Stimson thought Russian insistence on the Curzon Line reasonable
in the light of history— “it certainly does not seem to be worth a
quarrel with Russia.” State Department briefing-book papers prepared
for Roosevelt’s use at Yalta recommended the Curzon Line as a basis for
the Polish-Russian boundary but, reflecting a promise the President had
made to Polish Prime Minister Mikolajczyk the previous summer, sug­
gested trying to get Stalin to leave the province of Lvov inside Poland.
Stalin’s claims at the expense of Finland, Rumania, and the Baltic States
were not mentioned.46
State Department officials did worry, however, about how disclosure
of these agreements would affect public opinion. Stettinius wrote Roose­
velt that while Americans would not categorically oppose Stalin’s terri­
torial demands, they would object to Russian acquisition of Polish terri­
tory without Polish consent. Americans would accept any boundary
settlement which the Russians, the London Poles, and the Lublin Poles
reached together, but any Russian agreement with the Lublin Poles
alone would probably not be regarded by American opinion as express­
ing the will of the Polish people.47
John D. Hickerson, now deputy director of the State Department's Of­
fice of European Affairs, explained the boundary problem clearly in a
memorandum to Stettinius: Everyone knew that the Soviet Union in­
tended to reabsorb the Baltic States, Bessarabia, and parts of East Prussia
and pre-1939 Poland. “I personally don’t like it although I realize that
the Soviet Government has arguments on its side. The point is [that] it
has been done and nothing which it is in the power of the United States
Government to do can undo it.” Under the circumstances, Hickerson fa­
vored accepting Moscow’s territorial claims, using whatever bargaining
power the United States had left to persuade the Russians to cooperate
in the postwar international organization. The United States would also
need Soviet support to defeat Germany and Japan— “the importance
46 Baruch to Roosevelt, January 4, 1945, Baruch MSS, “Memoranda— President
Roosevelt, 1945”; Stimson memorandum for conversation with Stettinius, January 22,
1945, Stimson MSS, Box 418; Yalta briefing book paper, “Suggested United States
Policy Regarding Poland,” FR: Yalta, pp. 230—34. For Roosevelt’s promise regarding
Lvov, see Ciechanowski, Defeat in Victory, p. 305; and Mikolajczyk, The Rape of Po­
land, pp. 59—60.
47 Stettinius to Roosevelt, December 30, 1944, Roosevelt MSS, PSF 30: “Stettinius.”
Security versus Self-Determination 159

of these two things can be reckoned in terms of American lives.” Hicker-

son felt, however, that concessions of this kind could not be made with­
out repercussions inside the United States. Accordingly, he recommended
an immediate program involving off-the-record discussions with con­
gressmen, newspapermen, and radio commentators to prepare the public
for these developments.48
The complexion of governments in the newly liberated nations of
Eastern Europe concerned the State Department more than did bounda­
ries. Stettinius warned Roosevelt early in January of a widespread public
belief that both Britain and Russia were actively supporting factions of
their choice in liberated countries. “The public disapproves of such uni­
lateral action.” The Secretary of State felt that a positive statement clari­
fying the American position on liberated Europe “would tend to find
support and furnish a frame of reference, which the public clearly de­
sires.” On January 18, Stettinius recommended to the President estab­
lishment of an Emergency High Commission for Liberated Europe, com­
posed of the governments of the United States, Great Britain, the Soviet
Union, and France, which would “assist in establishing popular govern­
ments and in facilitating the solution of emergency economic problems
in the former occupied and satellite states of Europe.” Announcement of
such a commission at the Big Three meeting “would reassure public
opinion in the United States and elsewhere.” 49
Archibald MacLeish, assistant secretary of state for public and cultural
relations, worried that “the wave of disillusionment which has distressed
us in the last several weeks” would increase if Americans got the impres­
sion that “potentially totalitarian provisional governments” were being
set up in liberated countries. “It would be a blessing to the world if we
could walk straight up to this question.” The Big Three should agree
first, that the peoples of the liberated areas are to have an opportunity, when
conditions permit them to express their will, to decide for themselves what
48 Hickerson to Stettinius, January 8, 1945, FR: Yalta, pp. 94—96.
49 Stettinius to Roosevelt, January 6, 1945, Roosevelt MSS, PSF 29: “State Depart­
ment“; Stettinius to Roosevelt, January 18, 1945, FR: Yalta, pp. 97—98. A Yalta
briefing book paper on spheres of influence commented: “It would be unfortunate . . .
if any temporary arrangement should . . . appear to be a departure from the principle
adopted by the three Governments at Moscow [in 1943], in definite rejection of the
spheres of influence idea.. . .Any arrangement suggestive of spheres of influence can­
not but militate against the establishment and effective functioning of a broader system
of general security in which all countries will have a part.“ {Ibid., p. 105.)
160 Secm ity versus Self-Determination

kind of government they want; second, that they can have any kind of gov­
ernment they want, so long as it is not a government, the existence of which
would endanger the peace of the world—and a fascist government, in our
opinion, does endanger the peace of the world by its mere existence.
Leo Pasvolsky, special assistant to the secretary of state in charge of
planning for the United Nations, wrote Stettinius that creation of the
proposed Emergency High Commission for Liberated Europe “would be
the most powerful antidote that we can devise for the rapidly crystalliz­
ing opposition in this country to the whole Dumbarton Oaks idea on the
score that the future organization would merely underwrite a system of
unilateral grabbing.“ 50
Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin met for the second time during the
war at Yalta on the coast of the Black Sea in February, 1945. F.DR.’s
choice of advisers to accompany him reflected his preoccupation with
how the public would react to this meeting. To interpret the Yalta
agreements to the Congress, he took along James F. Byrnes, director of
the Office of War Mobilization and Reconversion, popularly known as
the “Assistant President“ in charge of the home front. Byrnes, having
had no experience in foreign affairs, was genuinely surprised at being
asked to go. As a conservative South Carolina Democrat whom Roosevelt
had pointedly passed over for the vice-presidential nomination in 1944,
however, Byrnes had little reason to follow the President blindly, and
was therefore a good choice for this assignment. Less clear were Roose­
velt’s reasons for asking Edward J. Flynn, Democratic “boss“ of the
Bronx, to join the Yalta entourage. Apparently Roosevelt’s extreme sen­
sitivity to Catholic opinion made him feel the necessity of including a
prominent Catholic like Flynn, who later made a special report to the
Pope on religious conditions in Russia. The President also broke sharply
with his previous custom by, for the first time, taking the Secretary of
State to a major wartime conference with the Russians.51
5J MacLeish to Joseph C Grew, January 24, 1945, FR: Yalta, pp. 101—2; Macleish
to James C. Dunn, January 19, 1945, ibid., pp. 427—28; Pasvolsky to Stettinius, Janu­
ary 23, 1945, ibid., p. 101. At a preliminary meeting on the island of Malta, Stettin­
ius told Anthony Eden that public sentiment made it extremely important for the Big
Three to find a solution to the Polish problem. Otherwise the American people, espe­
cially Catholics, would be “greatly disturbed,” and the prospect of American member­
ship in the international organization might be endangered. (Minutes of Eden-Stettin-
ius meeting, February 1, 1945, ibid., pp. 499—500.)
51 James F. Byrnes, All in One Lifetime, pp. 252—53; Ernest K. Lindley, “Byrnes,
Security versus Self-Determination 161

Little was said at Yalta about Russia's boundaries with its East Euro­
pean neighbors. Roosevelt told Stalin that, as he had noted at Teheran,
he was “in general" in favor of the Curzon Line as the eastern boundary
of Poland. Reminding the Russian leader again of the six or seven mil­
lion Poles in the United States, however, the President observed that
“most Poles, like the Chinese, want to save face. . . . It would make it
easier for me at home if the Soviet Government could give something to
Poland." Roosevelt suggested, merely as a “gesture," that the Russians
leave the predominantly Polish city of Lvov and the surrounding oil
fields within the new Poland, even though they were on the Russian side
of the Curzon Line. Stalin refused. The Curzon Line, he pointed out with
malicious accuracy, had originally been drawn by the Allies after World
W ar I. How could he return to Moscow and have it said of him that he
was less Russian than Curzon and Clemenceau? *52 This ended discussion
of the Russo-Polish boundary.
Far more difficult to resolve was the problem of who was to govern
Poland— the Lublin Poles, the London Poles, or a combination of
both. Roosevelt told Stalin that the American public opposed recognition
of the Lublin government on the grounds that it represented a minority
of the Polish people. In the same breath, however, the President also
said that he wanted a government in Poland “that will be thoroughly
friendly to the Soviet [Union] for years to come. That is essential." It
seems unlikely that Roosevelt realized the contradiction implicit in this
statement— the fact that a government in Warsaw representative of
the will of the Polish people would almost inevitably have been hostile
to the Soviet Union.53
The Russians insisted that the Lublin Poles form the nucleus of any
the Persuasive Reporter/’ Newsweek, XXV (March 12, 1945), 42; Edward J. Flynn,
You're the Boss, pp. 185—206; Time, XLV (April 2, 1945), 22; Stettinius, Roosevelt
and the Russians, p. 3.
52 H. Freeman Matthews notes, 3d plenary meeting, February 6, 1945, FR: Yalta,
pp. 677—78. The final communiqué reflected the Russian position on boundaries:
“The three Heads of Government consider that the eastern frontier of Poland should
follow the Curzon Line with digressions from it in some regions of five to eight kilo­
meters in favor of Poland. They recognize that Poland must receive substantial acces­
sions of territory in the north and west. . . . The final delimitation of the western
frontier of Poland should await the Peace Conference.’’ {Ibid., pp. 973—74.)
53 Matthews notes, 3d plenary meeting, February 6, 1945, FR: Yalta, pp. 677—78;
McNeill, America, Britain, and Russia, p. 535.
162 Security versus Self-Determination

new Polish provisional government. The British argued that a wholly

new Polish government should be constituted, composed of representa­
tives from both the London and Lublin regimes. On February 9, the
American delegation suggested as a compromise that “the present Polish
Provisional Government be reorganized into a fully representative gov­
ernment based on all democratic forces in Poland and including demo­
cratic leaders from Poland abroad.“ The American proposal became the
basis for the final agreement: “The Provisional Government which is
now functioning in Poland should . . . be reorganized on a broader
democratic basis with the inclusion of democratic leaders from Poland it­
self and from Poles abroad. This new Government should then be called
the Polish Provisional Government of National Unity.“ This accord left
intact the essence of the Russian position that the Lublin regime should
serve as the basis for the new Polish provisional government, a fact
which did not escape Roosevelt. Two weeks before his death he re­
minded Churchill that “we placed, as clearly shown in the agreement,
somewhat more emphasis on the Lublin Poles than on the other two
groups from which the new Government is to be drawn.” 54
Roosevelt agreed to this compromise because he believed the reorgan­
ized Polish provisional government would remain in power only until
it could hold elections to determine the will of the Polish people. Stalin
encouraged this belief, telling the President that “unless there is a catas­
trophe on the front and the Germans defeat us” it might be possible to
hold elections in Poland within a month. Roosevelt placed great impor­
tance on these elections:
He [Roosevelt] felt that the elections was [sic] the crux of the whole mat­
ter, and since it was true, as Marshal Stalin had said, that the Poles were
quarrelsome people not only at home but also abroad, he would like to have
54 Bohlen notes, 5th plenary meeting, February 8, 1945, FR: Yalta, pp. 776—79;
American delegation draft, “Suggestions in Regard to the Polish Governmental Ques­
tion,” February 9, 1945, ibid., pp. 815—16; Yalta Conference communiqué, February
12, 1945, ibid., pp. 973—74; Roosevelt to Churchill, March 29, 1945, FR: 1945, V,
189. According to Joseph E. Davies, Byrnes admitted to him on June 6, 1945, that
“there was no intent [at Yalta] that a new government was to be created independent
of the Lublin Government. . . . There was no justification under the spirit or letter of
the agreement for insistence by Harriman and the British Ambassador that an entirely
new Government should be created. . . .“ (Davies Journal, June 6, 1945, Davies
MSS, Box 17.) For a clear discussion of the Yalta negotiations on Poland, see Martin
F. Herz, Beginnings o f the Cold War, pp. 80—85.
Security versus Self-Determination 163

some assurance for the six million Poles in the United States that these elec­
tions would be freely held, and he said he was sure if such assurance were
present that elections would be held by the Poles there would be no doubt as
to the sincerity of the agreement reached here.
Roosevelt emphasized that the first Polish election should be "beyond
question": “It should be like Caesar's wife. I did not know her but they
said she was pure." Stalin replied: "They said that about her but in fact
she had her sins." 55
The final communique reflected Roosevelt's wishes by pledging the
new provisional government "to the holding of free and unfettered elec­
tions as soon as possible on the basis of universal suffrage and secret bal­
lot.” Anglo-American efforts to have the communiqué specify Big Three
supervision of the elections failed, however, because Molotov thought
this would be "offensive to the Poles.” After negotiations had ended. Ad­
miral Leahy warned Roosevelt that the agreement on Poland was “so
elastic that the Russians can stretch it all the way from Yalta to Wash­
ington without ever technically breaking it.” The President replied wea­
rily: "I know, Bill— I know it. But it's the best I can do for Poland at
this time." 56
Roosevelt never tried to implement Stettinius’ suggestion for an Emer­
gency High Commission on Liberated Europe. He did persuade
Churchill and Stalin to sign a "Declaration on Liberated Europe" which
reaffirmed the principles of the Atlantic Charter and called for the for­
mation of provisional governments in Eastern Europe "broadly represent­
ative of all democratic elements in the population and pledged to the
earliest possible establishment through free elections of governments re­
sponsive to the will of the people." The declaration lacked enforcement
machinery, however, providing only that when necessary the Big Three
would "consult together on the measures necessary to discharge the joint
responsibilities set forth in this declaration.” James F. Byrnes later ad­
mitted candidly that the President had proposed the Declaration on Lib­
erated Europe because of concern inside the United States about the for-
55 Matthews notes, 5th plenary meeting, February 8, 1945, FR: Yalta, p. 790; Boh­
len notes, 6th plenary meeting, February 9, 1945, ibid., p. 854.
56 Yalta Conference communique, February 12, 1945, FR: Yalta, p. 973; Bohlen
notes, 6th plenary meeting, February 9, 1945, ibid., pp. 842—43; Leahy, I Was There,
pp. 315-16.
164 Security versus Self-Determination

mation of spheres of influence in Eastern Europe. Roosevelt’s reluctance

to apply the declaration less than two weeks after Yalta when the Rus­
sians imposed a puppet government on Rumania doubtless indicated to
Moscow that the President did not expect literal compliance with the
terms of the agreement.57
President Roosevelt was pleased with what he had accomplished at
Yalta. The commitment from the Russians to allow free elections in
Eastern Europe promised to allay American fears of a Russian sphere of
influence. While the agreement on organizing a Polish provisional gov­
ernment was a compromise, Roosevelt regarded it as only a temporary
one. Resolution of the dispute over voting in the United Nations Secu­
rity Council, together with the agreement to meet in San Francisco in
April to draw up a charter for the world organization, indicated that the
Russians sincerely wanted the new collective security effort to succeed.
Secretary of State Stettinius described Yalta as a “most successful meet­
ing,” giving every evidence that the Russians wanted to cooperate with
the United States. Harry Hopkins thought that at Yalta “the Russians
had proved that they could be reasonable and farseeing and there wasn’t
any doubt in the minds of the President or any of us that we could live
with them and get along with them peacefully for as far into the future
as any of us could imagine.” 58
On March 1, 1945, Roosevelt, looking tired, reported in person to a
joint session of Congress on the Yalta Conference. He delivered his
speech sitting down, in an unusual public acknowledgment of his infir­
mity. His hands shook as he read the text. Yalta, he said, provided the
foundation for a lasting peace settlement which would bring order and
security to the world. It would not be a perfect settlement at first. “But
it can be a peace— and it will be a peace— based on the sound and
just principles of the Atlantic Charter.” The Declaration on Liberated
Europe had halted a trend toward the development of spheres of influ-
57 Yalta Conference communiqué, February 12, 1945, FR: Yalta, pp. 977—78; New
York Times, February 14, 1945. On the Rumanian situation, see Feis, Churchill, Roo­
sevelt, Stalin, pp. 564—67; and Byrnes, Speaking Frankly, p. 53. William H. McNeill
has argued that Stalin must have viewed the Declaration on Liberated Europe as “a
harmless piece of rhetoric, soothing to the Americans.” {America, Britain, and Russia,
p. 559.)
58 James V. Forrestal Diary, March 13, 1945, Walter Millis, ed., The Forrestal Dia­
ries, p. 35; Stimson Diary, March 13, 1945, Stimson MSS; Sherwood, Roosevelt and
Hopkins, p. 870.
Security versus Self-Determination 165

ence which, “if allowed to go unchecked,. . . might have had tragic re­
sults.” The compromise on Poland, “under the circumstances, is the most
hopeful agreement possible for a free, independent, and prosperous Pol­
ish state.” But, in the final analysis, success or failure of the Yalta
agreements would depend on the United States Congress. “Unless you
here in the halls of the American Congress— with the support of the
American people— concur in the decisions reached at Yalta, and give
them your active support, the meeting will not have produced lasting
results.” 59

v
President Roosevelt achieved considerable success in making palatable to
the American people the Yalta decisions on Eastern Europe. Taking the
Big Three’s pledge to hold free elections in Poland and the rest of East­
ern Europe as an assurance that these countries would not suffer the im­
position of unrepresentative regimes, most Americans at the time viewed
the agreements as the best possible solution to the problem. While some
observers regarded the Polish arrangements as imperfect, they were seen
as necessary compromises. The New York Times commented that al­
though the agreements might disappoint some people, they still sur­
passed most expectations. Time said of Yalta that “no citizen of the U.S.,
the U.S.S.R., or Great Britain could complain that his country had been
sold down the river.” A public opinion poll taken shortly after the con­
ference erided revealed that only 9 percent of those questioned saw the
results of the Yalta Conference as unfavorable to the United States.60
But, as the President had said, the ultimate outcome of Yalta would
depend upon the attitude of the United States Congress. Roosevelt, W il­
son’s unfortunate precedent firmly in mind, did his best to ensure that
the compromises he had .made would not endanger prospects for Ameri­
can membership in the new world organization. Even before his per-
59 FDR: Public Papers, XIII, 570-86; Time, XLV (March 12, 1945), 17; Drury,
Senate Journal, pp. 371—73.
60 Department of State, "Fortnightly Survey of American Opinion,*’ No. 21, Febru­
ary 20, 1945; New York Times, February 13, 1945; Time, XLV (February 19, 1945),
15—16; American Institute of Public Opinion poll, February 20, 1945, cited in Cantril
and Strunk, eds., Public Opinion, p. 1084.
166 Security versus Self-Determination

sonal appearance on Capitol Hill, the President had begun working to

present the Yalta agreements to Congress in the most favorable light.
For this purpose, Byrnes flew back to Washington as soon as the confer­
ence ended and immediately set to work. In private conversations with
congressional leaders and in a public press conference, he emphasized as
major achievements of the conference the Declaration on Liberated Eu­
rope and the Big Three's agreement to meet at San Francisco in April to
organize the United Nations. Byrnes performed his job well. "The Cri­
mean communiqué was favorably received by the public and by the
Congress,” he wrote Roosevelt; "with few unimportant exceptions, the
. . . press was very favorable.” Although reluctant to discuss specific de­
tails, congressional leaders of both parties expressed general satisfaction
with the results of the conference. Senate majority leader Alben Barkley
cabled Roosevelt that the Yalta communiqué had made "a profound im­
pression” when read on the floor of the Senate. The New Republic's
"TRB” detected some notes of caution in Washington's reaction, but
pointed out that Robsevelt had already achieved more than Wilson in
winning congressional approval of the peace settlement.61
Public criticism of the Yalta agreements was limited to Polish-Ameri­
can groups, chronic Roosevelt critics like David Lawrence, who saw
Yalta as "a confirmation of lynch law in international affairs,” and old
isolationists like Senator Burton K. Wheeler, who warned that the Dec­
laration on Liberated Europe was a rhetorical gesture which would in
no way prevent Russian control of Eastern Europe. The isolated nature
of these complaints became clear when the House Foreign Affairs Com­
mittee refused even to report out New York Representative William
Barry's resolution condemning the agreement on Poland.62
But the most important potential critic of the Yalta Polish agreement,
though publicly silent, rumbled ominously in private. Senator Arthur H.
61 Byrnes to Roosevelt, February 17, 194$, Roosevelt MSS, OF 4675: “Crimea
Conf.“; Lind ley, “Byrnes, the Persuasive Reporter,“ p. 42; Time, XLV (February 26,
1945), 15—16; New York Times, February 13, 1945; Barkley to Roosevelt, February
12, 1945, quoted in Sherwood, Roosevelt and Hopkins, p. 870; New Republic, CXII
(February 26, 1945), 294.
62 Athan G. Theoharis, The Yalta Myths, pp. 27—29; David Lawrence, “The Trag­
edy of Yalta,“ US. News, XVIII (March 2, 1945), 26—27; New York Times, Febru­
ary 14, 1945; Congressional Record, February 26, 1945, p. 1470. See also Depaitment
of State, “Fortnightly Survey of American Opinion,“ Nos. 21, 22, and 23, February
20, March 7 and 20, 1945.
Security versus Self-Determination 167

Vandenberg, acutely sensitive to East European problems because of his

large Polish-American constituency in Michigan, had warned Secretary
of State Hull in 1944 that he would not support American membership
in a postwar international organization unless a “just” peace settlement
was obtained. As the Republican Party's most influential congressional
spokesman on foreign affairs, Vandenberg could well generate sufficient
votes in the Senate to kill the United Nations Charter. The Michigan
senator considered the Big Three's handling of the Polish question to
have been definitely unjust. “I think the Polish settlement was awful,”
he wrote Bernard Baruch. The Yalta compromise was not only unfair,
Vandenberg complained to the State Department, but might cause an
unfortunate psychological reaction among the American people. The
senator took an even blunter position in an off-the-record conversation
with Washington reporters: “If a Dumbarton Oaks treaty is ever killed
here in the Senate, over its body will stand the shadow of Poland.” 63
The unforeseen repercussions of a dramatic speech Vandenberg had
made on the floor of the Senate one month earlier, however, severely
limited his freedom to criticize the Yalta Polish agreement. Vandenberg
had intended in this address, delivered on January 10, 1945, to propose
a method of halting Soviet expansion without endangering the wartime
alliance or the final peace settlement. Much to the senator's surprise, the
speech had a vastly different effect.
Vandenberg had begun with a characteristically florid jab at President
Roosevelt's “jocular, and even cynical, dismissal of the Atlantic Charter
as a mere collection of fragmentary notes”:
These basic pledges cannot now be dismissed as a mere nautical nimbus.
They march with our armies. They sail with our fleets. They fly with our ea­
gles. They sleep with our martyred dead. The first requisite of honest candor,
Mr. President, I respectfully suggest, is to relight this torch.

63 Vandenberg to Baruch, February 15, 1945, Baruch MSS; Vandenberg to Joseph

C. Grew, February 19, 1945, Vandenberg, ed.. Private Papers, p. 150; Frank
McNaughton to Time home office, February 16, 1945, McNaughton MSS. See also
Byrnes to Roosevelt, February 17, 1945, Roosevelt MSS, OF 4675: “Crimea Conf.” I.
F. Stone feared that Vandenberg s hostility to the Polish settlement might impair Rus­
sian cooperation in the war against Japan: “To insist on perfectionism along the Pri-
pet Marshes might mean payment in American lives on Pacific Islands. That would be
a high price to pay for Polish megalomania and American domestic politics.” (“This
Is W hat We Voted For,” Nation, CLX [February 17, 1945], 175.)
168 Security versus Self-Determination

He then called his colleagues’ attention to the Soviet Union’s apparent

determination to create a sphere of influence in Eastern Europe “con­
trary to our conception of what we thought we were fighting for.”
Rather surprisingly, Vandenberg found Russia’s actions “perfectly under­
standable”: it was “her insistent purpose never again to be at the mercy
of another German tyranny.” The USSR had legitimate reasons for
doubting the ability of the future world organization to keep Germany
disarmed, especially since there was still no assurance that the United
States would join it. But why could not the United States, the Soviet
Union, and Great Britain immediately sign a treaty which would ‘per­
manently, conclusively, and effectively” disarm Germany and Japan?
Such a treaty, Vandenberg hoped, “would make postwar Soviet expan­
sion as illogical as it would be unnecessary.” 64
The senator’s hopeless addiction to purple prose obscured the point of
his speech, however, while another remark, made almost as an aside,
captured most of the attention:
I do not believe that any nation hereafter can immunize itself by its own ex­
clusive action. . . . Our oceans have ceased to be moats which automatically
protea our ramparts. Flesh and blood now compete unequally with winged
steel. War has become an all-consuming juggernaut. . . . I want maximum
American cooperation, consistent with legitimate American self-interest, with
constitutional process and with collateral events which warrant it, to make
the basic idea of Dumbarton Oaks succeed.
Coming from the Senate’s most influential former isolationist this state­
ment, befogged in rhetoric and shrouded in reservations though it was,
caused advocates of international organization to stir attentively. Van­
denberg had in fact been moving toward a repudiation of isolationism
for some time, but this was his first public pronouncement on the sub­
ject. Internationalists jumped to applaud the address, which Time ex­
travagantly called “the most important speech made by an American in
World War II.” Vandenberg himself later confessed that he had been
“completely surprised by the nationwide attention which the speech
precipitated.” 65
64 Congressional Record, January 10, 1945, pp. 164—67. Vandenberg also proposed
that when military necessity required unilateral decisions, these would be subject to
later review by the world organization.
65 Congressional Record, January 10, 1945, p. 166; Time, XLV (January 22, 1945),
Security versus Self-Determination 169

The political significance of the speech did not escape Roosevelt. The
following day he called members of the Senate Foreign Relations Com­
mittee, including Vandenberg, to the White House to inform them of his
plans for the Big Three meeting. At a cabinet meeting later that day
both Stimson and Byrnes praised the address, commenting that it offered
great possibilities for the President. Roosevelt himself asked for fifty cop­
ies of the speech before leaving for Yalta. On his return, he announced
the appointment of Arthur H. Vandenberg to the American delegation
to the San Francisco Conference.*66
Roosevelt’s action placed Vandenberg in a dilemma. He could not ac­
cept this appointment without seeming to endorse the Yalta decision on
Poland. He could not decline without endangering Senate approval of
the United Nations Charter. Furthermore, Vandenberg feared that his
refusal to serve might hurt the Republican Party by reviving old charges
of isolationism: “It would have been just about equivalent to commit­
ting suicide in public.” Senator Wheeler saw Vandenberg’s predicament
clearly: “He’s got a lot of Poles in his state, and they certainly didn’t
make a good settlement for Poland.. . . He climbed way out on a limb
in that security speech of his, and now he can’t get back. He is sweating
plenty.. . . He doesn’t like it, but he’ll have to go along now.” Vanden­
berg finally decided to go to San Francisco, reserving the right, as he
wrote the President, to suggest amendments to the proposed charter and
to judge for himself whether he could support the final result. But as one
of the senator’s fellow delegates noticed, Vandenberg “seemed a little
grouchy and suspicious of the whole business.” 67
15—16; Vandenberg to Fred S. Robie, July 8, 1948, Vandenberg, ed., Private Papers,
pp. 139—40. For summaries of the public reaction to Vandenberg’s speech, see
ibid., pp. 138—44; and Department of State, “Fortnightly Survey of American Opin­
ion,” No. 19, January 19, 1945. Vandenberg’s prose style, though often obscure, was
not without its usefulness, as Richard Rovere later noted: “Vandenberg can make a re­
treat sound like a call to arms, an evasion like a declaration of lofty principle.” (“The
Unassailable Vandenberg,” Harper's, CXCVI [May, 1948], 395—96.)
66 Newsweek, XXV (January 22, 1945), 38; Stimson notes of cabinet meeting, Jan­
uary 11, 1945, Stimson MSS, Box 418; Vandenberg to Robie, July 8, 1948, Vanden­
berg, ed., Private Papers, p. 140.
67 Vandenberg to John Foster Dulles, February 17, 1945, Vandenberg, ed.. Private
Papers, p. 152; Vandenberg to H. G. Hogan, March 26, 1945, Vandenberg MSS;
Frank McNaughton to Time home office, February 16, 1945, McNaughton MSS; Van­
denberg to Roosevelt, February 15 and March 1, 1945, Vandenberg, ed., Private Pa­
pers, pp. 149, 153; Virginia Gildersleeve, Many a Good Crusade, p. 318. See also
170 Security versus Self-Determination

Vandenberg explained his decision in a letter to Detroit Polish-Amer-

ican leader Frank Januszewski: “I could get no greater satisfaction out of
anything more than from joining— aye, in leading— a public de­
nunciation of Yalta and all its works as respects Poland.” But Vanden­
berg doubted whether this would really help: “It would be a relatively
simple matter to dynamite the new Peace League. . . . W hat would that
do for Poland? It would simply leave Russia in complete possession of
everything she wants. . . . There would be no hope left for justice ex­
cept through World W ar Number Three immediately.” Vandenberg be­
lieved he could accomplish more for Poland by seeking justice through
the United Nations and by holding the Roosevelt Administration to
“strict accountability for the kind of a Provisional Polish Government
which we shall be parties to imposing on Poland.” 68
By making Vandenberg a delegate to the San Francisco Conference
Roosevelt skillfully restrained the most dangerous potential critic of the
Yalta agreements on Eastern Europe. This ensured that these distasteful
but necessary concessions to the Soviet Union would not endanger
American membership in the future United Nations. It is a measure of
Roosevelt's achievement that the strongest criticism of the Yalta accords
came, not over their tacit acquiescence in Soviet control of Eastern Eu­
rope, but over Roosevelt's secret commitment to give the Russians three
votes in the United Nations General Assembly.69 The President's clumsy
handling of this matter overshadowed the adept way in which he “sug­
ar-coated” the far more significant Yalta decisions on Eastern Europe.
Roosevelt’s death on April 12, 1945, made Senate approval of the
United Nations Charter certain. The New Republic wrote that “Frank­
lin Roosevelt at rest at Hyde Park is a more powerful force for Amer­
ica's participation in a world organization than was President Roosevelt
in the White House.” Tributes to the dead President and speculation
about the new one quickly replaced the atmosphere of distrust which
had poisoned relations between the White House and Capitol Hill.
Vandenberg’s comments on how his refusal to serve would hurt the Republican Party
in letters to Howard C. Lawrence, February 20, 1945, and Frank Januszewski, May
15, 1945, Vandenberg MSS.
68 Vandenberg to Januszewski, March 7, 1945, Vandenberg, ed.. Private Papers, pp.
155-56.
69 Time, XLV (April 9 and 16, 1945), 23—24, 19--20. See also Divine, Second
Chance, pp. 272—76.
Security versus Self-Determination 171

W ith the martyrdom of Roosevelt the cause of international organiza­

tion became sacrosanct for all but the most unregenerate isolationists.70

VI
But just as this overwhelming domestic consensus in favor of world or­
ganization was forming, the international consensus necessary for its suc­
cess seemed to be dissipating. Soviet actions in Eastern Europe during
the latter part of February showed that Moscow’s interpretation of the
“democratic” guarantees written into the Yalta agreements differed
drastically from the meaning assigned them by Western observers. An­
drei Vishinsky, Soviet deputy commissar for foreign affairs, arrived in
Bucharest demanding immediate installation of a new Rumanian gov­
ernment which would be more sympathetic to Moscow than the existing
regime. When the king of Rumania hesitated, Vishinsky gave him two
hours to comply and then stalked out, banging the door so hard that it
cracked the plaster in the king’s study. Simultaneously, in the Soviet cap­
ital, tripartite negotiations on implementing the Yalta Polish agreement
were getting nowhere. Soviet Foreign Minister Molotov insisted repeat­
edly that members of the Lublin regime should form the basis of the
new Polish provisional government, and refused to consider the inclu­
sion of representatives from the London government-in-exile. Ambassa­
dor Harriman, his patience wearing thin, reported that Molotov was ob­
viously under instructions “to give as little ground as possible in the
direction of bringing in elements not under Soviet control and to fight
every inch of the way.” 71
During March other disturbing events took place. The Anglo-Ameri­
can effort to negotiate at Berne for the surrender of German armies in
Italy brought a reaction from Stalin bordering on hysteria. American
military officials were receiving reports of harsh treatment from United
States prisoners-of-war who had been liberated by the Russians. The So-
70 New Republic, CXII (April 23, 1945), 539-40. See also Department of State,
“Fortnightly Survey of American Opinion/' No. 25, April 24, 1945; and I. F. Stone,
“Farewell to F.D.R.,“ Nation, CLX (April 21, 1945), 437.
71 Burton Y. Berry to Stettinius, February 28 and March 7, 1945, FR: 1945, V,
487-88, 502; Harriman to Stettinius, March 2, 1945, ibid., p. 136. For the full docu­
mentation on the Polish and Rumanian situations, see ibid., pp. 123—217, 470—524.
172 Security versus Self-Determination

viet Union demanded that the Lublin Poles be invited to send delegates
to the San Francisco Conference, despite the fact that their government
had not yet been broadened in accord with the Yalta decisions. Late in
March, Moscow announced that Molotov would not be attending the
San Francisco meeting, a development which seemed to indicate waning
Russian enthusiasm for an international organization. By April 2, Secre­
tary of State Stettinius was warning his colleagues in the cabinet that a
serious deterioration in relations with the Soviet Union had taken
place.72
It is not clear to what extent President Roosevelt expected literal
compliance with the Yalta agreements. When asked at a press confer­
ence whether Russian actions in Rumania were consistent with the Dec­
laration on Liberated Europe, he brushed the question off: “O my God!
Ask the State Department/' But he later wrote Stalin that he could not
understand why Rumanian developments should not come under the
terms of that declaration. On March 11, Roosevelt cabled Churchill that
“neither the Government nor the people of this country will support
participation in a fraud or mere whitewash of the Lublin Government.”
Three weeks later he wired Stalin:
While it is true that the Lublin Government is to be reorganized and its
members play a prominent role it is to be done in such a fashion as to bring
into being a new Government. This point is clearly brought out in several
places in the text of the agreement. I must make it quite plain to you that
any such solution which would result in a thinly disguised continuance of the
present Warsaw regime would be unacceptable and would cause the people
of the United States to regard the Yalta agreement as having failed.
On the day before he died, however, Roosevelt was in a more concilia­
tory mood. He wrote Churchill: “I would minimize the general Soviet
problem as much as possible, because these problems, in one form or an­
other, seem to arise every day, and most of them straighten out.” 73
72 Stimson Diary, March 16, 17, April 2, 4, 1945, Stimson MSS; Leahy, I Was
There, pp. 385—94; Grew memorandum of a conversation with Soviet ambassador
Gromyko, March 23, 1945, FR: 1945, I, 148; Grew to Roosevelt, March 23, 1945,
ibid., pp. 151—52; Roosevelt to Stalin, March 24, 1945, ibid., p. 156; Forrestal Diary,
April 2, 1945, Millis, ed., Forrestal Diaries, pp. 38—39. See also Time, XLV (April 9,
1945), 23; and Newsweek, XXV (April 16, 1945), 24.
73 Roosevelt press conference, March 13, 1945, Roosevelt MSS, PPF 1-P, Vol.
XXV; Roosevelt to Stalin, April 1, 1945, FR: 1945, V, 194—96; Roosevelt to Church­
ill, March 11, 1945, ibid., p. 157, and April 11, 1945, ibid., p. 210.
Security versus Self-Determination 173

Roosevelt may well have expected the Russians to allow free elections
in Poland and the rest of Eastern Europe. The habit of wartime collabo­
ration was still alive, and the readiness of the Russians at Yalta to prom­
ise these elections had been encouraging. When it began to look as
though Moscow was stalling, the President became concerned. He never
wavered, however, in his insistence that governments installed in power
along Russia’s borders be “friendly” to the Soviet Union. F.D.R.’s super­
ficial knowledge of Eastern Europe kept him from fully realizing the
contradiction between freely elected and pro-Russian governments in
that turbulent part of the world. It was like a labor-management conflict
in the United States, he once told Polish Prime Minister Mikolajczyk:
all that was necessary was an impartial mediator to prod the negotia­
tions along.74 But whatever his expectations, the President by his actions
had led the American people to expect free elections in Eastern Europe,
while at the same time leading the Russians to expect a free hand. The
peculiar mixture of naïveté and realism which characterized Roosevelt’s
East European policy had created a painful dilemma, which it would
now be up to Harry S. Truman to resolve.
74 Ciechanowski, Defeat in Victory, pp. 299—300.
 Economic Relations:
Lend-Lease and the Russian Loan

From the purely economic point of view, prospects for postwar Soviet-
American cooperation seemed encouraging during World War II. The
United States had built up a massive industrial plant to produce war ma­
terials not only for itself but also for its allies. Reconversion to the pro­
duction of consumer goods would be at best a painful process, and could
be disastrous, for no one knew whether the American economy could
maintain full employment in peacetime. The Soviet Union needed heavy
industrial equipment, partly to rebuild its war-devastated economy,
partly to satisfy its people's long denied desire for more consumer goods.
Moscow could solve its reconstruction problems, it appeared, by placing
massive orders for industrial equipment with American firms. Filling
these orders would help the United States deal with its own reconversion
problems and, in the process, would begin to integrate the Soviet Union
into the multilateral system of world trade to which Washington at­
tached such great importance. Both countries, it seemed, had a strong in­
terest in promoting this most promising of economic partnerships.
But neither the Soviet Union nor the United States found it easy to
divorce economics from politics. As the end of the war approached,
American leaders became increasingly concerned about emerging areas
of conflict with Russia— especially the problems of German repara-
Économie Relations 175

tions and self-determination in Eastern Europe. Moreover, Congress by

this time had made it clear that it would not support American efforts
to finance world reconstruction unless the United States obtained sub­
stantial benefits therefrom. Accordingly, the Roosevelt Administration
decided early in 1945 that the advantages of withholding aid to Russia
in hopes of extracting political concessions outweighed the economic
gains to be derived from extending such assistance.
Although the Russians viewed American economic aid as an impor­
tant part of their reconstruction program, they were never willing to sac­
rifice major political objectives to obtain it. An alternative though less
desirable method of. rebuilding Soviet industry did exist— the extrac­
tion of massive reparations from Germany while maintaining tight con­
trols over the Russian consumer economy. Furthermore, Soviet ideolo­
gists believed Moscow would be doing the Americans a favor by
accepting economic assistance. Anticipating a postwar depression in the
United States brought on by the “internal contradictions” of capitalism,
they expected to have American businessmen practically forcing unsold
products upon the Russians, and hence saw little need to make the con­
cessions which Washington demanded. Conflicting political goals thus
overrode congruent economic interests to produce another of the irritants
which led to the disintegration of the Grand Alliance.

I
A large postwar loan to the Soviet Union seemed the most efficient way
for the United States to assist Russian reconstruction. Prewar imports
from the USSR had never reached substantial levels, and would not
come close to balancing the vast quantity of goods which the Russians
would want after World War II. The Soviet Union possessed large gold
reserves, but could not finance large purchases indefinitely in that man­
ner. A long-term loan, however, would allow the Russians to meet their
reconstruction needs at once, while gradually paying off the debt
through increasing exports to the United States. By extending such a
loan, Washington could ensure American businessmen the foreign mar­
ket they would need to maintain full employment after the war. Late in
1943 the United States government informed the Russians, through
176 Economic Relations

both official and unofficial channels, that it was prepared to consider

such a loan.
W. Averell Harriman, the new American ambassador in Moscow,
strongly advocated postwar economic cooperation with the Soviet Union.
Harriman’s international banking firm had extended credits to the So­
viet government in the 1920s, and Harriman himself had visited the
country several times. He found the Russians to be “most meticulous” in
meeting their financial commitments. In 1941, President Roosevelt had
chosen Harriman to go to Moscow to help arrange for the extension of
lend-lease aid. Shortly before his appointment as ambassador in October,
1943, Harriman told Roosevelt that the Soviet Union was depending on
the United States for help in postwar reconstruction. At a press confer­
ence held after his arrival in Moscow, he stated that American assistance
in rebuilding the Soviet economy deserved “the greatest possible consid­
eration at this time.” 1
Harriman favored aiding Russia for two reasons. Like many other
Americans, he expected the end of the war to bring a sharp rise in un­
employment in the United States which might cause another depression.
The production of heavy industrial equipment for the USSR could keep
American factories operating at full pace for some time to come. But
Harriman did not view aid to Russia solely in terms of its effect on the
domestic economy. Moscow’s intention to dominate Eastern Europe al­
ready worried him, and he regarded a postwar loan as one of the few
means by which Washington could affect Russian actions in that part of
the world. “Economic assistance,” he wrote Secretary of State Hull early
in 1944, “is one of the most effective weapons at our disposal to influ­
ence European political developments in the direction we desire and to
avoid the development of a sphere of influence of the Soviet Union over
Eastern Europe and the Balkans.” 2
Donald M. Nelson, chairman of the War Production Board, also
raised the possibility of economic collaboration with Moscow during a
1W . Averell Harriman, “From Stalin to Kosygin: The Myths and the Realities/’
Look, XXXI (October 3, 1967), 55—62; Harriman to Roosevelt, July 5, 1943, FR;
Tehran, p. 15; Harriman press conference, November 4, 1943, FR: 1943, III, 586—89.
See also Harriman, America’and Russia in a Changing World, pp. 2—7.
2 Harriman to Hull, March 13, 1944, FR: 1944, IV, 951. See also ibid., pp.
944—45, 1052—55. For Harriman’s concern about the domestic economy, see FR:
1943, III, 586-89, 781-86, and FR: 1944, IV, 1032-35.
Economic Relations 111

visit to the Soviet Union in October, 1943. Nelson told the Russian
leaders that “a great future” existed in trade with America. The United
States would have available after the war a vast surplus of industrial
equipment which the Russians could employ to rebuild their economy,
while the Soviet Union had raw materials which the United States could
use. Mutual self-interest called for economic cooperation, Nelson argued,
for the two economies so obviously complemented each other. Stalin
agreed. In a long interview on October 16, he told Nelson that Russians
liked Americans and their products, and wanted to import commodities
from the United States after the war. The Soviet leader asked whether
his government could purchase these goods on credit. Nelson, speaking
strictly as an individual, replied that credit could probably be arranged,
with initial repayments kept small until the Soviets had completed re­
construction. Stalin showed great interest in this idea, repeatedly and
forcefully assuring Nelson that an American investment in Soviet recon­
struction would be a sound one. Impressed by what he had heard, Nel­
son returned to tell the American people that Russia could be “an excel­
lent source of business for America.” 3
At the Moscow Foreign Ministers’ Conference that same month,
Secretary of State Hull told the Russians that Americans desired “to co­
operate fully in the rehabilitation of war damage in the U.S.S.R.,” and
suggested that the Russians begin negotiations on this subject with
United States Embassy officials in Moscow as soon as possible. Early in
November, Harriman brought up the matter with Anastas I. Mikoyan,
Soviet commissar for foreign trade. Harriman asked the Russians to start
thinking about what they would need to rebuild their economy, and
mentioned the possibility of an American loan. “It would be in the self-
interest of the United States,” the ambassador pointed out, “to be able to
afford full employment during the period of transition from wartime to
peacetime economy.” 4
Harriman and President Roosevelt discussed aid to Russia at the Te­
heran Conference in December, 1943, but the President did not get a
3 Nelson-Molotov conversation, October 12, 1943, Nelson-Stalin conversation, Octo­
ber 16, 1943, FR: 1943, III, 710—15; Donald M. Nelson, “What I Saw in Russia,”
Collier's, CXIII (January 29, 1944), 11 ff.
4 Moscow Conference Document No. 36, “U.S. Proposal on Cooperation in the Re­
habilitation of W ar Damage in the Soviet Union,” FR: 1943, I, 739; Bohlen notes of
Harriman-Mikoyan conversation, November 5, 1943, ibid., pp. 781—86.
178 Economic Relations

chance to bring up the matter with Stalin. He did authorize Harriman

to continue his direct negotiations with the Russians. Harriman did not
have to initiate discussions, however, for late in December Molotov,
showing “the keenest interest in the matter,” asked him what might be
done about a postwar credit. One month later Mikoyan proposed to Har­
riman that the United States lend Russia one billion dollars, at an inter­
est rate of one-half of 1 percent, with repayment to begin sixteen years
after extension of the credit.5 The Russians thus responded enthusiasti­
cally to the American offer to assist their reconstruction. Only at this
point, however, did Washington begin to examine seriously the eco­
nomic, legal, and political implications of extending such assistance.

Before the United States could extend reconstruction credits to the So­
viet Union, it would have to devise some way to terminate the massive
flow of war material already reaching the Russians under lend-lease.
From the beginning of the war Soviet lend-lease shipments had enjoyed
a unique status. At Roosevelt’s insistence, American authorities accepted
Russian aid requests at face value, without the close scrutiny given appli­
cations from other allies. Moreover, as the war drew to a close, lend-
lease shipments to Russia were not cut back, as were those to other na­
tions. From June of 1941 through June of 1943, the Soviet Union
received more than four and a half million tons of equipment of all
kinds from the United States. During the next twelve months, the period
of the Third Lend-Lease Protocol, shipments exceeded five and a half
million tons.6
The original lend-lease agreement with the Soviet Union, announced
on November 4, 1941, called for repayment without interest beginning
five years after the end of the war. On June 11, 1942, however, the
United States canceled this arrangement and put Russian lend-lease on
5 Roosevelt to Harriman, December 1, 1943, Roosevelt MSS, OF 220, Box 2; Har­
riman to Hopkins, January 4, 1944, FR: 1944, IV, 1032—35; Harriman to Hull and
Stettinius, February 1, 1944, ibid., pp. 1041—42.
6 Herring, “Lend-Lease to Russia and the Origins of the Cold W ar,” p. 95; Robert
Huhn Jones, The Roads to Russia: United States Lend-Lease to the Soviet Uniont Ap­
pendix A.
Economic Relations 179

the same basis as British lend-lease, thus removing the formal require­
ment of repayment. Congress accepted this procedure to help America's
allies fight a common enemy, but, ever-sensitive to the dangers of pour­
ing resources down foreign “rat-holes,” demanded that lend-lease supplies
not be used to support postwar reconstruction efforts. As Senator Van-
denberg put it, lend-lease must not extend “1 minute or $1 into the
post-war period.” Such a neat distinction would be difficult to make,
however, for many of the items shipped to Russia for military purposes
could also be used for reconstruction.7
Ambassador Harriman repeatedly asked the Russians to distinguish
clearly between goods actually needed to fight the war and material to
be used to rebuild the Soviet economy. He pointed out that although
President Roosevelt wanted to interpret the Lend-Lease Act broadly, he
could not do so because lend-lease would be an issue in the 1944 politi­
cal campaign. In dispatches to Washington, Harriman warned that the
Soviets were already ordering more under lend-lease than they needed to
fight the war: “Unless we now begin to get at the least some knowledge
of the purposes for which they are using our shipments we lay ourselves
wide open to just criticism at home.” 8
Harriman proposed to solve this problem by having the United States
government lend the Russians enough money to obtain what they
needed for reconstruction. The Administration could then observe the
wishes of Congress by restricting lend-lease shipments to items of strictly
military utility. The ambassador suggested an initial credit of $500 mil­
lion, with repayment to take up to thirty years at an interest rate of 2 to
3 percent. Later on, larger credits could be granted. In addition to facili­
tating the orderly termination of lend-lease, Harriman expected the
credit to improve postwar political relations with Russia and to provide
“an outlet for American manufactured goods at the time our factories
and labor are released from war production.” Harriman emphasized the
necessity of referring to this extension of money as a “credit” and not a
“loan.” The Russians generally understood a loan to be granted without
7 McNeill, America, Britain, and Russia, p. 24; Herring, “Lend-Lease to Russia,” p.
102.
8 Harriman-Mikoyan conversation, November 5, 1943, FR: 1943, III, 781—86; Har­
riman to Hopkins, January 7, 1944, FR: 1944, IV, 1032—35; Harriman to Hopkins,
January 15, 1944, ibid., pp. 1039—40; Harriman to the President's Soviet Protocol
Committee, March 2, 1944, ibid., pp. 1057—58.
180 Economic Relations

restrictions on its use. In this case, Harriman recommended insisting that

the money be spent only to purchase American manufactured products,
raw materials, and services. Since there were many “undetermined ques­
tions” in political relations with the Soviet Union, he advised that
Washington retain control of the unallocated balance of the credit at all
times, refusing to fill Soviet orders if for any reason it seemed inadvisa­
ble to do so.9
The Administration found Harriman’s proposal impractical because it
could not extend reconstruction credits to the Soviet Union without
some form of congressional authorization. The Export-Import Bank had
general authority to make foreign loans without specific congressional
approval, but the Johnson Act of 1934 categorically prohibited both
government and private loans to the Soviet Union.10 Even if the John­
son Act had not been on the books, an Export-Import Bank credit to
Russia would have required special action by Congress because the bank
had now virtually exhausted its allotted capital of $700 million. Harry
Hopkins, who handled Russian lend-lease matters for President Roose­
velt, informed Harriman early in February, 1944, that for these reasons
the Administration preferred not to extend a separate reconstruction
credit to the Russians at that time.
Hopkins recommended that the Russians continue to meet their re­
construction needs through lend-lease and agree to reimburse the United
States for items of more than strictly military utility. This plan would
ensure a steady flow of material useful for both the war and reconstruc­
tion, without necessitating an approach to Congress. If it failed, the
United States could always revert to Harriman’s proposal. Hull told
Harriman that he would form a special interdepartmental committee “to
study and coordinate” all matters relating to the possible future exten­
sion of reconstruction credits.11
Harriman reluctantly accepted the use of lend-lease machinery to cir-
9 Harriman to Hopkins, January 7, 1944, FR: 1944, IV, 1032-35; Harriman to
Hull and Stettinius, January 9, 1944, ibid., pp. 1035-36; Harriman to Hull, Stettin-
ius, and Hopkins, January 9, 1944, ibid., pp. 1036—37.
10 The Soviet government had never agreed to assume the debts to the United States
of its predecessors, the Tsarist and Provisional governments. For negotiations on this
matter, see FR: The Soviet Union, 1933—1939, pp. 161—91.
11 Hopkins to Harriman, February 4, 1944, FR: 1944, IV, 1043—46; Hull to Harri­
man, February 8, 1944, ibid., pp. 1047—48.
Economic Relations 181

cumvent legal difficulties prohibiting direct aid to Soviet reconstruction,

but he warned that this did not solve the problem. The Russians were
planning a fifteen-year reconstruction program. Unless the American
government could assure them of long-term credits in some form, they
would not want to do business with the United States. Exports to the
USSR were going to be vital in keeping American factories busy after
the war. If the United States delayed extending credits, “we would then
lose a competitive advantage in obtaining business for the time when it
is most needed for the readjustment of our own war production program/’
Furthermore, Harriman stressed using aid to the Soviet Union as a po­
litical weapon. Employed correctly, it could ensure that the Russians
“play the international game with us in accordance with out standards.”
Harriman thought that Stalin would have to offer his people the pros­
pect of rapid reconstruction in order to stay in power. A program of as­
sistance to Russia which the United States could suspend at any time
would be of “extreme value.” Economic aid could also be used in Eastern
Europe to prevent that region from falling under the domination of
Moscow. To secure these political benefits, however, the United States
would need a “well-forged” economic instrument. Vague promises to ex­
tend aid at some indefinite time in the future would only arouse suspi­
cions in Moscow. Harriman pleaded with Hopkins not to let the ques­
tion of aiding Russian reconstruction be bottled up in Hull's committee.
He acknowledged the existence of difficulties in extending credits, but
hoped that the economic and political advantages which he had men­
tioned might “offer ammunition for dealing with this aspect.” 12
Despite Harriman’s reservations, the Roosevelt Administration stuck
to its position. The Russians continued to satisfy their reconstruction
needs through lend-lease, subject only to the condition that they reim­
burse the United States for material of more than military value.13 This
decision not to distinguish between lend-lease and reconstruction credits
caused trouble later on when the Russians insisted on continuing this
policy, while Congress, appalled by the prospect of reconstructing the
world at the expense of the American taxpayer, demanded rigid separa-
12 Harriman to Hopkins, February 13, 1944, FR: 1944, IV, 1052—53; Harriman to
Hull and Stettinius, February 14, 1944, ibid., pp. 1054—55.
13Stettinius and Leo T. Crowley to Roosevelt, March 6, 1944, FR: 1944, IV,
1059—60; Stettinius to Harriman, March 7, 1944, ibid., pp. 1060—62.
182 Economic Relations

tion. By the time Harriman’s plan for a separate reconstruction credit

was revived early in 1945, the political atmosphere was far less favor­
able to it than it had been in 1944.

m
The prospects for postwar Soviet-American trade would to a consider­
able extent determine the feasibility of a large American loan to the So­
viet Union, for if imports from Russia failed to exceed exports, it would
be difficult for the Russians to repay the loan in a reasonable length of
time. Prewar trade figures were not encouraging. Between 1922 and
1938, exports to the USSR usually constituted between 1 and 2 percent
of total American exports, and never exceeded 5 percent. Imports from
the Soviet Union exceeded 1 percent of total imports only in 1938. The
value of American exports to the Soviet Union fluctuated wildly from as
high as $113.4 million in 1929 to as little as $8.9 million in 1933, aver­
aging somewhat less than $50 million during the entire interwar period.
American imports from the Soviet Union averaged only about $15 mil­
lion annually.14
State Department officials felt pessimistic about the possibility of in­
creasing imports from Russia. Elbridge Durbrow of the department's
Division of European Affairs observed late in 1943 that, contrary to
popular belief, the Russian and American economies were not comple­
mentary. The Soviet Union produced few goods which the United States
could use. On the basis of anticipated trade figures, credits, if expected to
be repaid within ten to twenty years, could not exceed $200 million.
Hence, “extreme caution" should be taken to avoid giving false impres­
sions regarding postwar trade opportunities with the Soviet Union. In
April, 1944, the department received a report which predicted that after
the war the United States would import from the Soviet Union only
one-third of what it exported. A large American loan might increase
American exports to that country for a time, but amortization and inter­
est requirements would make it difficult for the Soviets to continue to
14 Department of Commerce figures, cited in Ernest C. Ropes, “The Union of Soviet
Socialist Republics as a Factor in World Trade,“ World Economics, II
(October—December, 1944), 81.
Economic Relations 183

take large American exports and still maintain a balance of payments

equilibrium.15
Ambassador Harriman refused to admit that postwar American im­
ports from the Soviet Union had to be so small. While he applauded the
State Department's wish to deflate exaggerated optimism about trade
with Russia, he called at the same time for a more positive program of
stimulating imports “to the fullest extent possible.” Russian requirements
for American industrial equipment would be so great, Harriman felt,
that trade between the two nations could advance significantly above
prewar levels “provided we will adopt import policies that will make it
possible.” 16
George F. Kennan, counselor of the embassy in Moscow, did not share
his chief's optimism. Kennan regarded the problem of Russian foreign
trade and credits as “simpler than people are apt to think.” The Soviet
Union would not depend on foreign trade in the postwar period and
would not likely give up anything it considered vital to obtain such
trade. Russia would accept credits from the West but would not be
grateful for them, assuming that the nations extending them were acting
in their own self-interest. Kennan worried that if a large portion of the
American economy became dependent on Soviet trade orders, the Rus­
sians would not hesitate to exploit this dependence in ways detrimental
to the United States.17
The Office of Strategic Services, surveying prospects for Russian-
American economic relations in September, 1944, concluded that Soviet
reconstruction would depend very little on foreign credit. A loan of $1
billion a year for the next three years would speed up rehabilitation of
the Russian economy by no more than a few months. The rate of recon­
struction would depend more on whether the Russians felt they had to
maintain a large peacetime military establishment than on the availabil­
ity of credits. Early in 1945 the State Department estimated that with-
15Durbrow memorandum, November 29, 1943, FR: 1943, III, 722—23; Report by
the Interdepartmental Subcommittee on the Soviet Union of the Committee on Trade
Agreements, “Aspects of Post-War Soviet Foreign Trade“ (abstract), April, 1944, FR:
1944, IV, 959-60.
16 Harriman to Hull, April 1, 1944, FR: 1944, IV, 958.
17 Kennan memorandum, “Russia— Seven Years Later,“ September, 1944, printed
in Kennan, Memoirs, pp. 503—31; Kennan to Harriman, December 3, 1944 [appar­
ently misdated 1945], quoted ibid., pp. 267—68.
184 Economic Relations

out receiving foreign loans and through only limited use of its gold re­
serves the Soviet Union could, with the help of German reparations,
regain its prewar level of capital investment by 1948. American credits
would accelerate the process by only a matter of months. The Soviet
Union, the department concluded, would therefore be able “to take a
highly independent position in negotiations regarding foreign credits.” 18
Not all government officials concerned with Russian-American eco­
nomic relations shared the pessimism of Kennan, the O.S.S., and the
State Department. Ernest C. Ropes, chief of the Russian Unit of the
Commerce Department’s Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce,
foresaw a substantial postwar increase in American imports from the
USSR. This would come about as a result of efforts by the United States
to expand its world trade, and from the Soviet Union’s natural desire to
sell more in a market where it was making large purchases. Ropes ac­
knowledged, however, that American imports from Russia would not
come close to equaling exports, especially in the years immediately after
the war. To make the purchases they wanted from the United States, the
Russians would need credits running from ten to thirty years.
Ropes predicted that the Soviet Union would be a good credit risk. In
lending money, one usually considered both the borrower’s capacity and
his willingness to repay. Russia’s economic resources exceeded those of
any other country, and its prewar reputation for meeting financial obli­
gations had been excellent. “It would seem,” Ropes concluded, “that the
Soviet case is strong, and that the United States, to keep its war-ex­
panded industry producing at a high rate in peace-time, could hardly
find a means readier to its hand than to bid for Soviet business.” 19
The Treasury Department also rated the prospects for American im­
ports from Russia higher than did the State Department. Treasury Secre-
18 Summary prepared by Samuel Lubell in March, 1945, of an Office of Sttategic
Services study, “Russian Reconstruction and Postwar Foreign Trade Developments,”
September 9, 1944, Baruch MSS, “Selected Correspondence”; memorandum by Emilio
G. Collado, January 4, 1945, FR: 1945, V, 938—40.
19 Ropes, “The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics as a Factor in World Trade,”
pp. 85—86. Ropes retained his optimism about the benefits of a credit to Russia long
after most people had given up hope. As late as the summer of 1946, after a trip to
Russia, he was saying that the extension of a $ 1 billion credit to Russia would result
in purchases by the Russians of $2 billion worth of American products. (New York
Times, July 31, 1946.)
Economic Relations 185

tary Henry Morgenthau, Jr., worried about the depletion of American

natural resources, hoped to obtain strategic raw materials from the So­
viet Union in return for a large, long-term loan. Early in 1944 he asked
his assistant, Harry Dexter White, to estimate what quantities of mer­
cury, manganese, chromium, and other strategic commodities the Soviet
Union could produce and the United States could absorb. White pre­
dicted that the United States could import more than enough raw mate­
rials to allow the Russians to pay off a $5 billion loan in thirty years.
The Russians could use this credit to purchase badly needed industrial
and agricultural equipment from American firms. This arrangement
would provide the United States with an important source of raw mate­
rials while at the same time guaranteeing a vast market for American
industrial products.20
Although government agencies took a mixed view of the prospects for
Soviet-American trade, American businessmen expressed fewer reserva­
tions. Concerned about finding postwar markets, they looked to the
USSR as a new, virtually untapped field. Russia’s massive reconstruction
needs, they anticipated, would be met largely with American industrial
equipment. Moreover, many businessmen believed that the Soviet gov­
ernment could not go on indefinitely denying its people a higher stand­
ard of living. Russia’s masses would emerge from the war with an insa­
tiable appetite for consumer goods, and while the Russian government
might not want to import items directly from the United States, it
would doubtless need to import the machines necessary to produce con­
sumer goods for such a large market.
No one did more to propagate this point of view among businessmen
than Eric Johnston, the dynamic young president of the United States
Chamber of Commerce whom one admirer described as “the savior of his
free-enterprise faith, the Luther of a business reformation.” Johnston
spent eight weeks in the Soviet Union in the summer of 1944. The Rus­
sians received him with the enthusiasm they reserved for prominent cap­
italists, allowing him to travel wherever he wanted and, in an unprece­
dented move, permitting reporters to accompany him. Johnston met
with Foreign Trade Commissar Mikoyan and Foreign Minister Molotov,
20 Blum, M orgenthau Diaries: Years o f War, p. 304; White to Morgenthau, March
7, 1944, White MSS, Folder 23.
186 Economic Relations

and on the evening of June 26, 1944, held a lengthy interview with Jo­
seph Stalin.21
The interview started badly with Johnston suggesting that Stalin im­
port American chain-store executives to improve Soviet distribution
practices, while the Russian dictator drew wolves on his doodling pad
and predicted a postwar depression in the United States. When the talk
turned to economic relations with America, however, Stalin brightened.
He proceeded to give Johnston the most complete account of Russia’s
postwar economic plans that any American had yet received. Stalin told
Johnston that the Russians would import heavy industrial equipment,
but not consumer goods. They would use some of this equipment to pro­
duce consumer goods themselves. Russia would not export manufactured
products in large number, since these would be needed at home, but
would export large quantities of raw materials. Stalin gave some hint of
what would be demanded of the Russian economy when he told John­
ston that steel production, then running about 10 to 12 million tons an­
nually, would be increased to 60 million tons.
The Russian leader indicated that the Soviets wanted to purchase vir­
tually unlimited quantities of American products, depending on what
credit terms were extended. They would “pay promptly for everything,
strictly in accordance with the terms of the contract.” Listing possible
Russian exports to the United States, Stalin asked: “Would you like
manganese? We have quantities. We could give you chrome, platinum,
copper, oil, tungsten. And then there’s timber and pulp wood and furs.
Perhaps you will want gold. . . . Most capitalistic countries want gold.”
Russia’s requirements were so great, Stalin said, and its development so
meager, that “I can foresee no time when we will have enough of any­
thing.” Ending the interview in a burst of good fellowship, the jovial au­
tocrat told Johnston: “I like to do business with American businessmen.
You fellows know what you want. Your word is good and, best of all,
you stay in office a long time— just like we do over here. But a politi­
cian is here today and gone tomorrow, and then you have to make ar­
rangements all over with a new set.” 22
21 John Chamberlain, "Eric Johnston,” Life, XVI (June 19, 1944), 97—98. For an
account of Johnston’s reception in the Soviet Union, see Harrison E. Salisbury, “Rus­
sia Beckons Big Business,” Colliers, CXIV (September 2, 1944), 11 ff. On Johnston’s
meeting with Mikoyan and Molotov, see FR: 1944, IV, 967—68.
22 Eric Johnston, "My Talk with Joseph Stalin,” Reader*s Digest, XLV (October,
Economic Relations 187

Johnston reported to the members of the United States Chamber of

Commerce that he found a growing sense of nationalism in Russia, a
lessening of the traditional suspicion of foreigners, and, above all, a great
desire for peace and the economic rehabilitation peace would bring:
“Every top Communist leader with whom I discussed the problem talked
about the need of raising the standard of living of the Russian people
and the devoting of their resources as much as possible to that end after
the war, particularly the production of consumer goods.” The Russians
greatly admired the United States, Johnston observed, especially its pro­
ductive capacity. “They want to imitate America as far as possible, and
that goes for the standard of living.” Moscow would need long-term
credits, either from private investors or from the United States govern­
ment, but would constitute an excellent risk— credits to the Soviet
Union would be as good as any in the postwar international field. The
Russians would repay American credits with raw materials which the
United States badly needed. By giving credit to the USSR the United
States would not be aiding a future competitor— Russia “needs so
much of almost every conceivable thing that I can foresee no period
within our lifetime when Russia will be a competitor in the markets of
the world with her produce.” *23
Johnston’s conclusions were widely reported in business and financial
publications and received a sympathetic hearing from American industri­
alists. A. M. Hamilton, foreign sales vice-president of the American Lo­
comotive Company, described the Soviet Union as “potentially our great­
est postwar customer.” William L. Batt, vice-chairman of the W ar
Production Board and president of S.K.F. Industries, wrote that “the
problem of trade with Russia is easier of solution than the problem of
trade with any other part of the world. The question is not likely to be,
How much and how fast does Russia want our goods, but How fast and
under what conditions are we able and willing to furnish them?” New
York University’s Institute of International Finance reported that under
favorable conditions postwar Russian-American trade could surpass all
previous records. The magazine Industrial Marketing called Russia
1944), 1—10. For Ambassador Harriman s somewhat more prosaic account of this
meeting, see Harriman to Hull, June 30, 1944, FR: 1944, IV, 973—74.
23 Report to the United States Chamber of Commerce, printed in Export and Trade
Shipper, XLIX (July 31, 1944), 5—6. See also Eric Johnston, *'A Business View of
Russia/’ Nation's Business, XXXII (October, 1944), 21—22.
188 Economic Relations

“without doubt the richest potential export market for American in­
dustrial equipment and products in the immediate and future postwar
period/* 24
Fortune magazine reported in January, 1945, that some seven
hundred American corporations had paid more than a quarter of a mil­
lion dollars to place advertisements in a “Catalogue of American Engi­
neering and Industry** which Russian representatives in New York were
preparing to send to Soviet purchasing agencies. Predictions of postwar
exports to Russia ran from $500 million to $5 billion, with most observ­
ers foreseeing exports of between $1 billion and $2 billion annually. The
American-Russian Chamber of Commerce and the Chase National Bank
were planning a public campaign to get the Johnson Act repealed so
that private bankers could extend loans to Russia. Five other large banks
were discussing the possibility of forming a combination to finance Rus­
sian trade. American bankers considered Russia an unusually good credit
risk, oddly enough, because trade in the Soviet Union was a state mo­
nopoly. Funds would always be available to meet commitments. Since
the Soviets could probably secure a loan from the United States govern­
ment on more favorable terms than from private sources, however, most
potential investors hesitated to act until Washington had decided what
to do about a large reconstruction credit.25
Prospects for trade with the Soviet Union did not cause American
businessmen to change their attitude toward Russia overnight. Fortune's
survey noted that major industrialists still felt vague anxieties about the
dangers of communism, the emergence of Russia as the dominant mili­
tary power in Europe and Asia, and the possibility that the USSR might
in time become a major competitor for world markets. But, lacking con­
fidence in the ability of their own economy to operate successfully in
peacetime, leaders of the American business community could not help
24 "What Business with Russia?” Fortune, XXXI (January, 1945), 153 ff.; William
L. Batt, “Can We Do Business with Russia?” Sales Management, LV (October 15,
1945), 202; “The Prospects of Soviet-American Trade Relations,” New York Univer­
sity Institute of International Finance, Bulletin, No. 139, August 27, 1945, p. 1; “Sell­
ing the Soviet,” Industrial Marketing, XXX (July, 1945), 46 ff.
25 "What Business with Russia?” pp. 153 ff.; “Russian-American Trade,” Index
[publication of the New York Trust Company], XXV (September, 1945), 62—72. On
the security of Russia as a credit risk, see New York University Institute of Interna­
tional Finance, Bulletin, No. 139, August 27, 1945, p. 16; and William M. Mandel,
“Russia— Our Biggest Postwar Market?” Advertising and Selling, XXXVII (May,
1944), 29 ff.
Economic Relations 189

regarding with anticipation the advantages of helping the Russians at­

tain that competitive position.26
Interestingly enough, both the Russian bid for a loan and the willing­
ness of American businessmen to consider it were based on the belief
that after the war the United States would undergo a serious depression.
Current Marxist doctrine taught that internal contradictions would
bring the capitalist system grinding to a halt soon after the war, and
that in order to survive industries in the United States would have to
seek new markets abroad.27 Many American business leaders expected
precisely the same thing, though for different reasons. They knew that
the New Deal had not solved the problem of maintaining full employ­
ment in peacetime, and that after the artificial stimulus of military ex­
penditures had ceased to operate, foreign markets might be the only
means of avoiding another disastrous depression.28 As it turned out, post­
war economic developments in the United States proved both Marxist
ideologues and American capitalists wrong. But before these events had
had time to occur, political difficulties intervened to alter the whole
framework in which the Russian loan had been discussed.

IV
American diplomats had never really divorced political considerations
from the question of financing postwar reconstruction in the Soviet
Union. Ambassador Harriman consistently regarded aid to Russia as
“one of our principal levers for influencing political action compatible
with our principles.” 29 But during 1943 and 1944, most discussions of
26 "What Business with Russia?" p. 204. An American Institute of Public Opinion
poll, taken in August, 1945, found that by a majority of more than two to one busi­
ness and professional leaders believed that the Russians could be trusted to cooperate
with the United States after the war, a figure significantly higher than for other major
occupation groups. (Cantril and Strunk, eds., Public Opinion, p. 371.)
27 For convenient summaries of this point of view, see Leonard Schapiro, The Com-
munist Party o f the Soviet Union, pp. 532—33; and Ulam, Expansion and Coexistence,
p. 410.
28 William A. Williams, The Tragedy o f American Diplomacy, pp. 217—18,
232—39; L. Gardner, Economic Aspects o f New Deal Diplomacy, pp. 263—64,
282-83, 290-91.
29 Harriman to Hull, March 13, 1944, FR: 1944, IV, 951. See also Harriman to
Hull, September 20, 1944, ibid,, p. 997. '
190 Economic Relations

this subject had taken place within a primarily economic framework.

The main benefit which Washington expected to receive from the pro­
posed loan to Russia— full peacetime employment— was economic
in nature, as were the principal factors impeding the extension of
credits— the difficulty of ensuring repayment and the existence of
legal restrictions on foreign lending. But by January of 1945, when the
Russians again raised the question of a postwar loan, the atmosphere
had changed. As the approach of victory exposed conflicts of interest
with the Soviet Union, particularly in Eastern Europe and Germany,
Washington officials came to feel that the political advantages of with­
holding the loan might well surpass the profits to be gained from ex­
tending it.
On January 3, 1945, Russian Foreign Minister Molotov told Harri-
man that if the United States would extend to the Soviet Union a $6
billion loan at an interest rate of 2J4 percent, the Soviet government
would place large orders for capital equipment in the United States.
Molotov pointedly reminded Harriman of “the repeated statements of
American public figures” that such large orders would ease the Ameri­
can economy's transition from war to peace. Coming with no previous
warning, the Russian “offer” surprised the American ambassador, who
considered it “extraordinary both in form and substance.” 30
Nevertheless, Harriman advised the Department of State to disregard
the unconventional form and unreasonable terms of Molotov's proposal,
ascribing them to “ignorance of normal business procedures and the
strange ideas of the Russians on how to get the best trade.” The United
States, he felt, should do everything it could through the extension of
credits to help the Russians develop a sound economy. Friendly postwar
relations would depend to some extent on American assistance in solv­
ing Russian reconstruction problems. Moreover, the sooner the Soviet
government could provide a decent life for its people, the more tractable
it would become. At the same time, the United States should make it
quite clear to the Russians “that our willingness to cooperate with them
. . . will depend upon their behavior in international matters.” Wash­
ington should retain full control of any credits granted to Moscow in
order to derive from them the maximum political advantages.31
30 Harriman to Stettinius, January 4, 1945» FR: 1945, V, 942—44. Molotov pro­
posed that the credit run for thirty years, with amortization to begin at the end of the
ninth year.
31 Harriman to Stettinius, January 6, 1945, FR: 1945, V, 945—47.
Economic Relations 191

Meanwhile, and apparently coincidentally, Treasury Secretary Mor-

genthau was reviving his department’s plan for extending credits to Rus­
sia. In a letter to Roosevelt early in January, he proposed giving the
Russians a loan of $10 billion at 2 percent interest for the purchase of
American products. The Russians would repay the loan mainly by ex­
porting strategic raw materials, with amortization to extend over a pe­
riod of thirty-five years.32
But Morgenthau encountered unsympathetic responses from both
President Roosevelt and Secretary of State Stettinius when he talked this
matter over with them on January 10, 1945. Roosevelt did not want to
discuss credits with the Russians until after the forthcoming Yalta Con­
ference, and seemed to favor using them as a device to extract conces­
sions on other issues: “I think it’s very important that we hold this back
and don’t give them any promises of finance until we get what we
want.” Later that day Morgenthau remarked to Stettinius that in dealing
with the Russians one should offer the carrot and not the stick. Stettinius
replied: “Henry, I don’t think you’d feel that way if you knew all . . . if
you had all the chips before you.” On the following day Roosevelt told a
group of senators that the loan might be a strong bargaining point to
use in dealings with the Soviet Union, and that he had decided to take
no action on the Russian request until he had talked to Stalin.33
The State Department now began to formulate a response to the
suggestions of both the Russians and Morgenthau. Emilio G. Collado,
chief of the Division of Financial and Monetary Affairs, did much to es­
tablish the department’s position. Collado did not attempt to evaluate
the wisdom of extending the loan itself, but emphasized the domestic po­
litical and economic difficulties it would entail. Congressmen would al­
most certainly balk at legislating credits for either the Soviet Union or
32 Morgenthau to Roosevelt, January 1 and 10, 1945, FR: 1945, V, 937—38,
948—49. Morgenthau anticipated that, in addition to exporting raw materials to the
United States, the Russians would repay the loan by exporting gold from their own re­
serves and dollars obtained from a favorable trade balance with the rest of the world,
from the American tourist trade, and from the sale of some nonstrategic items to the
United States.
33 Morgenthau Diary, January 10, 1945, Blum, Morgenthau Diaries: Years o f War,
pp. 305—6; minutes, Secretary of State’s Staff Committee meetings, January 12 and 19,
1945, Stettinius MSS, Box 235. According to Morgenthau, Stettinius actually pre­
vented him from showing Roosevelt Harriman’s telegram supporting the extension of
a loan. Stettinius apparently did furnish Roosevelt with a summary of Harriman’s
views, however. See Stettinius to Roosevelt, January 8, 1945, FR: 1945, V, 947—48.
192 Economic Relations

Great Britain. Morgenthau's plan to use the Russian loan to obtain

stockpiles of strategic raw materials would not arouse enthusiasm on
Capitol Hill, but would antagonize petroleum and mining interests.
Consequently credits, if granted, would have to be extended through the
Export-Import Bank, where special legislation would not be required.
But this approach too would create problems, for Congress would have
to extend the bank's lending authority before it could make a substantial
loan. The lowest rate of interest which the bank could charge without
discriminating against other borrowers was 4 percent, a rate almost
twice what the Russians had proposed to pay. Collado admitted that a
loan could benefit Soviet-American political relations, but thought that
the economic boost it would give to American industry had been exag­
gerated.34
Other government officials raised additional objections. Leo T. Crow­
ley, foreign economic administrator, thought that long-term credits
would be an important element in Soviet-American relations, but
pointed out that it would take some time to secure legislation to make
credits possible. Elbridge Durbrow, chief of the State Department's Divi­
sion of Eastern European Affairs, argued that the Soviet loan request
was simply an attempt to secure lend-lease on a permanent basis. Ed­
ward S. Mason, deputy to Assistant Secretary of State William L. Clay­
ton, warned that if the Russians were allowed to borrow money from
the United States at exceptionally low interest rates, “it will have acted
as a strong stimulus to state socialism, by enabling governments to un­
dertake developmental investment on more favorable terms than those
available to private investors.” 35
Determined to press for his proposal, Morgenthau forcefully argued
that the United States should give a credit of $10 billion to the Russians
immediately, without attaching conditions of any kind. In this way the
United States could reassure the Soviets of its desire to live in peace after
the war. Assistant Secretary of State Clayton, responding to Morgen-
thau's “impossible” proposal, summarized the arguments of his col­
leagues and then brought out into the open the political consideration at

34 Memoranda by Collado, January 4 and 17, 1945, FR: 1943, V, 938—40, 956—60.
35 Crowley to Stettinius, January 13, 1945, FR: 1945, V, 951—52; Durbrow to
Clayton, January 11, 1945, ibid., pp. 949—50; memorandum by Edward S. Mason,
February 7, 1945, ibid., pp. 973—75.
Economic Relations 193

which Roosevelt and Stettinius had hinted: it would be harmful from

the tactical point of view to grant such a large loan "and thus lose what
appears to be the only concrete bargaining lever for use in connection
with the many other political and economic problems which will arise
between our two countries.” 36
The State Department on January 27, 1945, authorized the Moscow
Embassy to inform the Russian government that
this Government is now studying ways and means of providing long-term
credits for postwar projects. It will be some time before the necessary legisla­
tion can be enacted and a determination made with respect to the amounts
which we can make available for this purpose. Until this can be done, no
definite agreement can be formalized with respect to a credit for supplies of
a purely post-war nature. It is the definite opinion of this Government that
long-term postwar credits constitute an important element in the postwar re­
lations between our two countries.
Summarizing the factors behind this decision in a telegram for Harri-
man, the department reiterated Collado’s arguments that requests for
specific congressional loan authorizations should be avoided, that the
proposed interest rate would cause difficulties with the Export-Import
Bank, and that the importation of Soviet raw materials would provoke
opposition from petroleum and mining interests. Finally, "it would seem
harmful at this time to offer such a large credit and lose what little bar­
gaining exists in future credit extensions.” The department asked that
nothing more be done on this matter until Roosevelt had had a chance
to discuss it with Stalin at Yalta. At the Big Three conference, however,
the question of postwar credits received only passing attention from the
foreign ministers. Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin apparently never got
around to it.37
James Reston of the New York Times learned of the Russian request
for a $6 billion loan sometime in January. Undersecretary of State
Joseph C. Grew, whom Reston had asked for guidance on the story, said
that he could make no comment, "but I would say, off-the-record and in
36 Unsigned, undated memorandum, “Proposals Made by the Secretary of the Trea­
sury to the Secretary of State Regarding Postwar Trade with the Soviet Union,“ FR:
1945, V, 961—63; Clayton memorandum of conversation with Morgenthau, January
25, 1945, ibid,, p. 966; Clayton to Stettinius, January 20, 1945, ibid., pp. 964—66.
37 Grew to Kennan, January 27, 1945, FR: 1945, V, 968—70; Grew to Harriman,
January 26, 1945, ibid., pp. 967—68; FR: Yalta, pp. 608—10.
194 Economic Relations

a purely friendly way, that I advised him to go slow.” Reston replied

that the story was bound to break in two or three days and that his only
wish was to present the whole picture. Grew remarked somewhat enig­
matically that “there was no picture,” and declined to elaborate his re­
marks. Two days later Restons substantially accurate account of the So­
viet loan request appeared on the front page of the New York Times.
Reston concluded his story with the observation that “some members of
the Administration [feel] that the present time is not propitious for dis­
cussing a post-war deal of this magnitude and it is said to be unlikely
that it will be acted upon for some time.” 38
The Administration therefore postponed action for the second time on
a Soviet loan request, evidently with the intention of extracting political
concessions. Ironically, Treasury Secretary Morgenthau’s simultaneous
proposal probably stiffened State Department opposition to the idea.
Top State Department officials still strongly resented Morgenthau’s re­
cent attempts to influence policy on Germany, and doubtless bristled au­
tomatically at this new Treasury incursion into diplomacy. When James
F. Byrnes became secretary of state in July, 1945, he expressed the gen­
eral departmental attitude by placing Morgenthau’s proposal in the
“Forgotten File,” taking time only to muse that “our Treasury officials
were not always the cold-hearted, glassy-eyed individuals all bankers are
supposed to be.” 39

Meanwhile, the Administration’s efforts to arrange for the orderly termi­

nation of lend-lease had collapsed, owing to the obstinacy of the Rus­
sians. During the spring of 1944, the United States government had pro­
posed that the Soviet Union comply with congressional requirements by
38 Grew memorandum of conversation with Reston, January 24, 1945, Grew MSS;
New York Times, January 26, 1945.
39 Byrnes, All in One Lifetime, p. 310. Thomas G. Paterson, “The Abortive Ameri­
can Loan to Russia and the Origins of the Cold War, 1943—1946,“ Journal o f Ameri­
can History, LVI (June, 1969), 80—81, 91—92, implies that the Truman Administra­
tion was responsible for the decision to use the loan to secure political concessions
from the Russians. Evidence cited above indicates that leading figures in the Roosevelt
Administration supported this policy, however, and that the decision to implement it
had been made by February, 1945.
Economic Relations 195

providing reimbursement for lend-lease materials used in postwar recon­

struction. The Roosevelt Administration offered to lend the Russians
whatever amount of money was necessary to pay for these goods, at an
interest rate of 2 Y% percent for thirty years. Moscow accepted the basic
outline of this arrangement, but balked at the interest rate. Negotiations
bogged down, and the Russians refused to sign the Fourth Lend-Lease
Protocol, covering shipments of supplies from July of 1944 through June
of 1945. This in no way impeded the flow of lend-lease goods to Russia,
but it did delay agreement on how to distinguish between items of
purely military value and those potentially useful for reconstruction.40
Both Roosevelt’s advisers and congressional leaders were demanding
with increasing regularity that such a distinction be made. Ambassador
Harriman and General Deane repeatedly warned from Moscow that the
Russians were taking advantage of American generosity by ordering
more material under lend-lease than they needed to fight the wai. News­
week reported in August, 1944, that senators who had never criticized
the use of lend-lease in wartime were now planning to oppose its use for
reconstruction. Secretary of War Stimson pleaded with Roosevelt in Oc­
tober not to try to employ lend-lease supplies for postwar rehabilitation
without securing new congressional authorization. Lauchlin Currie, one
of Roosevelt’s administrative assistants, warned him early in 1945 that
“should the Russo-German war end and Russia not be at war with
Japan, there will be great pressure from Congress and the press to cease
lend-lease unless Russia goes to war with Japan.” 41
When the annual lend-lease extension bill came before the House of
Representatives in March of 1945, Representative John Vorys, Republi­
can of Ohio, introduced an amendment categorically prohibiting the use
of lend-lease for postwar relief, rehabilitation, or reconstruction. Worried
over congressional suspicions regarding the use of lend-lease after the
40 For a convenient summary of negotiations on this subject during 1944, see John
H. Fletcher to Collado and Clayton, January 17, 1945, FR: 1943, V, 954—56. The
Russians finally signed the Fourth Protocol on April 17, 1945. (Ibid., p. 997.)
41 Herring, “Lend-Lease to Russia,“ pp. 96—98; Newsweek, XXIV (September 4,
1944), 19; Stimson Diary, October 13, 1944, quoted in Stimson and Bundy, On Ac­
tive Service, pp. 592—93; Currie memorandum, drafted on November 14, 1944, sent
to Roosevelt on January 19, 1945, Roosevelt MSS, PSF 57: "Crimea Conf." See also a
memorandum by Harry Dexter White of a conversation between Stimson and Morgen-
thau, September 20, 1944, FR: Yalta, pp. 139—40; and Leahy, I Was There, pp.
320-21, 329.
196 Economic Relations

war, the Roosevelt Administration decided not to oppose the Vorys

Amendment, which had attracted considerable support from Republi­
cans and some Democrats. Foreign Economic Administrator Crowley in­
stead suggested a compromise which would forbid use of lend-lease for
reconstruction but would allow recipient nations to obtain all goods con­
tracted for provided they paid for what arrived after the end of the war.
The Foreign Affairs Committee unanimously approved this arrange­
ment, advising the full House of Representatives that such a clear ex­
pression of congressional intent would prevent future misunderstandings.
Representative Karl Mundt told the House that “with this amendment
added, there can be no post-war economic activities by Lend-Lease ex­
cept through the most flagrant violation of the intent of Congress.” The
amended version of the lend-lease extension bill passed the House on
March 1 3 ,1945.42
The Foreign Economic Administration now recommended withdiaw-
ing the American proposal to let the Russians order reconstruction mate­
rials through the still unsigned Fourth Protocol. Instead the government
should adopt a new policy, in line with the wishes of Congress, which
would see to it that the Soviet Union did not receive significant amounts
of heavy industrial equipment under lend-lease after the war. Ambassa­
dor Harriman approved this idea, pointing out that many of the argu­
ments which a year earlier had caused him to recommend making
American goods available for Russian rehabilitation were no longer pres­
ent. On March 23, 1945, President Roosevelt officially approved the
FEA’s suggestion.43
When the Senate took up lend-lease extension early in April, it
showed that it felt even more strongly than the House about the post­
war uses of lend-lease. One group of senators regarded the Crowley-
Vorys compromise as a clever loophole designed precisely to conceal the
42 Newsweek, XXV (March 26, 1945), 46—48; Congressional Record, March 13,
1945, pp. 2120-21, 2124.
43 Stettinius to Harriman, March 16, 1945, PR: 1945, V, 988; Harriman to Stettin-
ius, March 20, 1945, ibid., pp. 988—89; Grew and Crowley to Roosevelt, March 23,
1945, ibid., p. 991. In his dispatch to Harriman Stettinius mentioned “recent discus­
sions in Congress” as one reason why the Foreign Economic Administration was rec­
ommending this change of policy. Harriman, in his reply, expressed the hope that the
Administration would continue to give the Russians “justifiable hopes” of working out
an arrangement for a completely separate long-term reconstruction credit.
Economic Relations 197

employment of lend-lease for reconstruction. Their attempt to remove

this provision from the bill, thereby cutting off all lend-lease upon the
termination of hostilities, failed on a 39-39 tie vote. On April 17, 1945,
President Truman signed the amended lend-lease bill into law. The
mood of Congress impressed itself vividly on the new Chief Executive.
Truman regarded European reconstruction as a cause worthy of Ameri­
can assistance, but felt that this assistance should come through the Ex­
port-Import Bank. “If we undertook to use any Lend-Lease money for re­
habilitation purposes we would open ourselves to Congressional
criticism.“ 44

Roosevelt's decision not to allow the Russians to obtain reconstruction

materials through lend-lease, and his reluctance to discuss a postwar
loan “until we get what we want,“ do not indicate that the President
was about to give up his long-standing policy of cooperation with the
Soviet Union at the time of his death. They do suggest, however, that re­
cent developments— the Berne incident, the quarrel over German rep­
arations, the Polish and Rumanian crises— had convinced him that
appeals to “world opinion“ or “high morality“ alone would not move
Stalin. In order to get the Russians to go along with the American post­
war peace program, firm but friendly pressure would have to be applied,
in much the same way that the United States had dealt with its British
ally since 1941. Holding back aid to Russian reconstruction was one of
the few means which Washington had of applying such pressure.45 Roo­
sevelt's successor in the White House went on to implement this policy,
but in a manner far less tactful than the smooth and sophisticated squire
of Hyde Park would have employed.
44 Congressional Record, April 10, 1945, pp. 3246—47; Harry S. Truman, Year o f
Decisions, pp. 46, 98. See also Herring, “Lend-Lease to Russia,“ pp. 101—2, 104.
45 For a more detailed discussion of the Roosevelt Administration’s decision to
apply economic pressure against the Russians, see George G Herring, Jr., “Aid to
Russia, 1941—1946: Strategy, Diplomacy, and the Origins of the Cold W ar,“ chapter
6.
 7
Victory and Transition:
S. Truman and the Russians

When Harry S. Truman became President of the United States on April

12,1945, he had no intention of reversing Franklin D. Roosevelt’s strat­
egy of cooperation with the Soviet Union. It is true that as a senator
from Missouri in June, 1941, he had delivered the snap judgment that
Russia and Germany should be allowed to fight each other to the death,
with the United States helping whichever side was losing. After Pearl
Harbor, however, Truman loyally supported the Roosevelt Administra­
tion’s foreign policy, a fact which made him an attractive candidate
when F.D.R. began looking for a running-mate to replace Henry A.
Wallace in 1944. The President failed to keep his new subordinate in­
formed regarding diplomatic developments, but this characteristic negli­
gence in no way lessened the new Chief Executive’s determination, upon
entering the W hite House, to work toward the goals his predecessor had
set.1
The objectives of policy would remain the same, but Truman
quickly made it clear that the manner of execution would not. Inexpe­
rienced in foreign affairs, yet determined to assert his authority,
1 Truman, Year o f Decisions, p. 12; Truman to Eleanor Roosevelt, May 31, 1947,
and March 16, 1948, printed in William Hillman, Mr. President, pp. 51—32. See also
Alfred Steinberg, The Man from Missouri, p. 186; and Jonathan Daniels, The Man o f
Independence, pp. 229, 258—59.
Victory and Transition 199

the new President sought to convey an impression of efficiency and deci­

siveness far removed from the lax and dilatory habits of F.D.R. Secretary
of W ar Stimson immediately noticed the change:
It was a wonderful relief to preceding conferences with our former Chief to
see the promptness and snappiness with which Truman took up each matter
and decided it. There were no long drawn-out “soliloquies” from the Presi­
dent, and the whole conference was thoroughly businesslike so that we ac­
tually covered two or three more matters than we had expected to discuss.
Acting Secretary of State Grew wrote after a meeting with Truman
early in May: “When I saw him today I had fourteen problems to take
up with him and got through them in less than fifteen minutes with a
clear directive on every one of them. You can imagine what a joy it is to
deal with a man like that.” But Truman’s forthright approach to the
problems of the presidency led him, during his first months in office, to
make several hasty decisions on the basis of inadequate information.2
These at times made it seem as if the new Chief Executive had decided
to repudiate Roosevelt’s “grand design.”
By the time of Roosevelt’s death Prime Minister Churchill and certain
key American advisers— notably Harriman, Deane, Leahy, and James
V. Forrestal, the new secretary of the navy— had developed strong
doubts about the Soviet Union’s willingness to cooperate with the
United States after the war. Impressed, Truman at first accepted their
recommendation that the only way to deal with the Russians was to
take an unyielding stand, even if this meant straining the Grand Alli­
ance. But strong countervailing forces kept the President from imple­
menting this policy consistently during his first year in office. No war­
monger, the new Chief Executive shrank from precipitating a third
world conflict until all avenues of compromise had been explored.
Knowledge that the American people still regarded the Russians as al­
lies further inhibited Truman. Moreover, the President had promised to
2 Stimson Diary, April 18, 1945, Stimson MSS; Grew to Cecil B. Lyon, May 2,
1945, Grew MSS, Box 122; Acheson, Present at the Creation, p. 731. Other early im­
pressions of Truman’s decisiveness appear in Albertson, Roosevelt*s Farmer, p. 396;
and Blum, Morgenthau Diaries: Years o f War, p. 423. See also Herbert Feis, Between
War and Peace: The Potsdam Conference, p. 160. In his memoirs, Truman listed Roo­
sevelt’s poor administrative methods as the one aspect of New Deal policy about
which he had reservations. (Year o f Decisions, pp. 12—13.) For an illuminating dis­
cussion of decision-making by Truman himself, see his Mr. Citizen, pp. 261—66.
200 Victory and Transition

carry öut all the agreements Roosevelt had made with the Soviet Union,
even though he doubted the wisdom of some of them. Former Roosevelt
advisers like Hopkins, Davies, and Stimson, all opposed to any hasty
confrontation with Moscow, remained influential during the early days
of the Truman Administration. Finally, the new President himself came
to view the leaders of the Soviet Union much as F.D.R. had seen them:
as fellow “politicians” with whom “arrangements” could be made
through personal diplomacy.3
The transfer of power at the White House, therefore, caused no over­
night reversal of United States policy toward the Soviet Union, although
Truman's abrasive personality may well have led the Russians to con­
clude, prematurely, that Roosevelt's goals had been abandoned. F.D.R.
himself had expressed concern over Soviet behavior during the brief pe­
riod between the Yalta Conference and his death, and had indicated, at
least in his growing reluctance to aid Russian reconstruction, that he
might be moving toward the tougher position several of his advisers had
advocated. Truman relied more heavily on these counselors than did
Roosevelt, and in his effort to appear decisive, probably accelerated the
shift toward a firmer stance. But at the time he died Roosevelt had by
no means given up hope of establishing friendly postwar relations with
the Soviet Union, nor would Truman for some time to come.4

I
On the day after Roosevelt's death, Ambassador Harriman persuaded
Stalin to reverse his earlier decision not to send Molotov to the San
3 Truman, Year o f Decisions, pp. 37, 70—72, 77—79; Truman to Stimson, July 7,
1950, printed in Hillman, Mr. President, p. 55; Daniels, Man o f Independence, pp.
269—70, 285—86. See also Neumann, After Victory, pp. 163—65.
4 The question of whether Truman reversed Roosevelt's Russian policy immediately
after becoming President has caused much debate among historians. Works which
stress the continuity of policy include Truman's own Memoirs; McNeill, America,
Britain, and Russia, pp. 579—80; Feis, Churchill, Roosevelt, Stalin, pp. 596—600; and
Kolko, The Politics o f War, pp. 380—81. Accounts which argue that Truman reversed
Roosevelt’s policy include Elliott Roosevelt, As He Saw It, pp. xü—xiv; D. F. Fleming,
The Cold War and Its Origins, 1917—1960, I, 265—69; Gar Alperovitz, Atomic Di­
plomacy: Hiroshima and Potsdam, pp. 12—13; Walter LaFeber, America, Russia, and
the Cold War, 1945—1967, pp. 2, 21—22; Diane Shaver Clemens, Yalta, pp. 268—74;
and Barton J. Bernstein, “American Foreign Policy and the Origins of the Cold War,”
in Bernstein, ed.. Politics and Policies o f the Truman Administration, p. 23.
Victory and Transition 201

Francisco Conference. The Soviet foreign minister agreed to stop in

Washington to meet the new President of the United States before the
conference opened on April 25.5 This gave Truman less than two weeks
to decide how he would deal with Russia, particularly on the crucial
Polish issue. In line with his desire to continue Roosevelt's policies, Tru­
man spent much of this time consulting with the late President's major
advisers on Soviet affairs.
No one did more to shape Truman's views than Harriman himself.
After spending more than a month in fruitless efforts to implement the
Yalta agreement on Poland, the American ambassador to Moscow had
grown deeply concerned regarding Soviet ambitions in Eastern Europe
and, one week before Roosevelt's death, had summarized his conclusions
in a lengthy cable to the State Department. The USSR had three basic
objectives, Harriman wrote: cooperation with the United States and
Great Britain in a world security organization; creation of a “unilateral
security ring'' through domination of the countries along Russia's west­
ern borders; and “penetration of other countries [by] Communist con­
trolled parties . . . to create [a] political atmosphere favorable to Soviet
policies." Washington had hoped that the success of the United Nations
would convince Moscow that it did not need a sphere of influence in
Eastern Europe, but it now appeared that the Russians intended to go
ahead with their plans regardless of what the world organization did.
Harriman believed that Stalin had interpreted acquiescent American at­
titudes on Eastern Europe as a sign of weakness, and had concluded that
he could with impunity work his will there. Soviet-American relations
would improve only when the British and Americans took a firmer and
franker stand. The time had come when “we must by our actions in each
individual case make it plain to the Soviet Government that they cannot
expect our cooperation on terms laid down by them." 6
Harriman had asked to come home for consultation before Roosevelt's
death, and reached Washington in time to advise Truman at length
prior to Molotov's arrival. In private conversations with the new Presi­
dent, he took an even blunter position than in his cables: Russian occu­
pation of any country would resemble a “barbarian invasion"— one
could expect not only Moscow's control of that nation's foreign policy
5 Harriman to Stettinius, April 13, 1945, FR: 1945, I, 289—90; memorandum by
Harry Hopkins, printed in Sherwood, Roosevelt and Hopkins, pp. 883—84.
6 Harriman to Stettinius, April 6, 1945, FR: 1945, V, 821—24.
202 Victory and Transition

but the institution of secret police rule and the extinction of freedom of
speech as well. Under these circumstances, the United States should re­
consider its policy toward the Soviet Union. American acquiescence in
Russian activities would have to stop; both sides would now have to
make concessions. The Russians would not react violently to a firmer
American policy, Harriman argued, because they still needed assistance
from the United States to rebuild their war-shattered economy.7
Other presidential counselors echoed Harriman’s call for a harder line
with the Russians. Secretary of the Navy Forrestal, who had been read­
ing Harriman’s cables, warned Truman that Soviet actions in Poland
were part of an over-all plan to take over Eastern Europe. The sooner
the United States called a halt to this, the better. Bernard Baruch ad­
vised the President that he should observe American obligations strictly,
but demand strongly that the Russians do the same. General Deane,
who had returned to Washington shortly before Harriman, told Truman
that timidity with the Soviet Union would achieve nothing; if the
United States was right, it should be firm. Admiral Leahy admitted that
the Yalta agreements on Poland might be open to variant interpreta­
tions, but thought that the United States should make its position clear.
While it might not be possible to prevent Russian domination of Po­
land, the United States could at least try “to give to the reorganized Pol­
ish Government an external appearance of independence.” 8
Significant opposition to a toughening of policy toward the Soviet
Union came only from the Secretary of War. Stimson had been shocked
early in April to learn how far relations with Russia had deteriorated.
Favoring firmness but opposing any show of temper, the Secretary re­
solved to use his influence to restrain those within the Administration
who had expressed irritation with the Russians. Stimson sympathized
with the Soviet desire to erect a protective ring of friendly states in East­
ern Europe. The East European countries had never known democracy,
he explained to Truman, and it seemed more important to continue co­
operation with Russia than to break up the alliance over this issue.
7 Bohlen memorandum of Truman-Harriman conversation, April 20, 1945, FR:
1945, V, 231-34.
8 Forrestal Diary, April 23, 1945, Millis, ed.. The Forrestal Diaries, p. 49; Baruch
to Truman, April 20, 1945, Baruch MSS, “Selected Correspondence“; Bohlen memo­
randum of Truman meeting with advisers, April 23, 1945, FR: 1945, V, 255; Leahy,
/ Was There, p. 413.
Victory and Transition 203

The vehemence of anti-Russian feeling among Truman’s advisers wor­

ried the Secretary of War. The bitterness of Harriman and Deane was to
be expected because they had personally suffered discourtesies from the
Russians for some time. But Forrestal’s support for their views alarmed
Stimson, and he noted regretfully that Truman himself “was evidently
disappointed at my caution and advice.” Only General Marshall, who
still hoped to secure Russian assistance in the war against Japan, backed
the Secretary of War. Stimson blamed the State Department for con­
fronting Truman with such a crucial issue so early in his administration.
The department should not have called the San Francisco Conference
without first settling outstanding issues with the Russians. Now the dis­
putes would become public. Opinion in the United States was “all
churned up” and the department would probably feel compelled to force
the American position through, a prospect which aroused in Stimson a
feeling of “very great anxiety.” 9
Truman sided with the majority of his advisers who called for a stern
response to Soviet actions in Eastern Europe. On April 17, after learning
that the Russians intended to sign a treaty of mutual assistance with the
Lublin Polish government, he resolved to “lay it on the line with Molo­
tov.” Admiral Leahy predicted on the 19th that “Molotov would be in
for some blunt talking from the American side.” Truman told Harriman
on the 20th that he was not afraid of the Russians and that he intended
to make no concessions to win their favor. He would not expect to get
Moscow to accept 100 percent of what the United States proposed, but
“we should be able to get 85 percent.” Truman planned to tell Molotov
“in words of one syllable” that unless the Russians observed the Yalta
agreement on Poland, the Senate would never approve American mem­
bership in the United Nations.10
The new President’s forthrightness came as a pleasant surprise to Har­
riman:
I had talked with Mr. Truman for only a few minutes when I began to real­
ize that the man had a real grasp of the situation. W hat a surprise and relief
this was! . . . I wanted . . . Molotov . . . to learn from the very highest
source that we would not stand for any pushing around on the Polish ques-
9 Stimson Diary, April 3, 23, 1945, Stimson MSS. See also Stimson and Bundy, On
Active Service, pp. 605—11.
10 Truman, Year o f Decisions, pp. 49—50; Leahy, I Was There, p. 409; Bohlen
memorandum, Truman-Harriman conversation, April 20, 1945, FR: 1945, V, 231—34.
204 Victory and tran sition

tion. And I hoped the President would back me up. W hen I left that first
conference with him that day, I knew that the Presidents mind didn't need
any making up from me on that point.

Both Truman and Molotov went into their meeting on April 23 expect­
ing the worst. The Soviet foreign minister told Joseph E. Davies a few
hours before going to the W hite House that he feared Truman's unfa­
miliarity with the background of Big Three decisions might cause the
new President to reverse Roosevelt's policy. At about the same time,
Truman was telling a group of advisers that agreements with the Rus­
sians so far had been a one-way street. This could not continue. The
United States was going to proceed with its plans for the San Francisco
Conference, and if the Russians disapproved, “they could go to hell.” 11
At their meeting later that afternoon, Truman sharply reprimanded
Molotov for Moscow’s failure to carry out the Yalta decisions on Poland.
An agreement had been made, and all that remained was for Stalin to
keep his word. When Molotov tried to explain that the Soviet govern­
ment was following what it considered to be the correct interpretation of
the Yalta agreement, Truman cut him off. The United States wanted co­
operation with the Soviet Union, he said, but not as a one-way proposi­
tion. “I have never been talked to like that in my life,” Molotov huffed.
Truman replied angrily: “Carry out your agreements and you won't get
talked to like that.” 112
Truman's undiplomatic lecture to Molotov impressed Admiral Leahy,
who thought that the Soviets would know after this meeting that the
United States intended “to insist upon the declared right of all people to
choose their own form of government.” Senator Vandenberg, who heard
of the encounter from Stettinius, considered it the best news in months:
“F.D.R.'s appeasement of Russia is over.” Truman himself was obviously
pleased with his performance. He later told Davies:
I said [to Molotov] . . . that what we wanted was that you live up to your
Yalta Agreement as to Poland. W e will live up strictly to ours, and that is

11 Cabell Phillips interview with Harriman, quoted in Phillips, The Truman Presi­
dency: History o f a Triumphant Succession, pp. 78—79; Davies Journal, April 23,
1945, Davies MSS, Box 16; Bohlen memorandum of Truman meeting with advisers,
April 23, 1945, FR: 1945, V, 252-55.
12 Truman, Year o f Decisions, pp. 79—82. Bohlen’s account of this meeting, in FR:
1945, V, 256—58, omits this last angry exchange.
Victory and Transition 205

exactly {what] I say to you now and there is no use discussing that further.
I gave it to him straight “one-two to the jaw.” I let him have it straight.
This tactic, Truman explained, was “the tough method. . . . Did I do
right?” Davies, “gravely alarmed” by what he had heard, tried to tell
the President “as tactfully as I could that ‘he did wrong' as I saw the
facts.” 13
There is little doubt that the Russians interpreted Truman's stormy
interview with Molotov as evidence that the new administration had
abandoned Roosevelt's policy of cooperation with the Soviet Union. The
Soviets knew Roosevelt, Stalin had told Harriman in 1944, and could
communicate with him. With Roosevelt alive, Molotov explained to
Davies, the Soviet government had always had “full confidence” that dif­
ferences could be worked out. Truman's belligerent attitude probably
shocked the Russian foreign minister, convincing him that if only F.D.R.
had lived, no confrontation over Eastern Europe would have taken
place.14 Such a view ignores the fact that Roosevelt himself had been
deeply concerned before his death over what he regarded as Russian vio­
lations of the Yalta agreement. Moreover, Truman's tough rhetoric of
April, 1945, was just that— rhetoric— and did not signify an end to
American efforts to reach an accommodation with the Soviet Union.
The new Chief Executive probably thought he was carrying on Roose­
velt's policies when he lectured Molotov on Moscow's failure to keep the
13 Leahy, I Was There, p. 413; Vandenberg Diary, April 24, 1945, Vandenberg,
ed., Private Papers, p. 176; Davies memorandum of conversation with Truman, April
30, 1945, Davies MSS, Box 16. After this discussion Davies wrote a personal letter to
Molotov assuring him that “as you and the great Marshal Stalin come to know our
frank President Truman better . . . a concert of action and purpose will be assured.“
(Davies to Molotov, May 2, 1945, Davies MSS, Box 16.) Jonathan Daniels, who in­
terviewed Truman extensively about his early days in office, writes: “Perhaps not
much was accomplished by that conference. . . . Afterwards he [Truman] realized
that in some cases he had tried to learn too much too fast. There was very little
time. . . .” (Man o f Independence, pp. 269—70.) See also Harriman, America and
Russia, p. 40.
14 Harriman to Hull, June 30, 1944, FR: 1944, IV, 974; Davies Journal, April 23,
1945, Davies MSS, Box 16. One day after Truman’s meeting with Molotov, Stalin ca­
bled the new President: “Such conditions must be recognized unusual when two
governments— those of the United States and Great Britain— beforehand settle with
the Polish question in which the Soviet Union is first of all and most of all interested
and put the government of the USSR in an unbearable position trying to dictate to it
their demands.’’ (Stalin to Truman, April 24, 1945, FR: 1945, V, 264.)
206 Victory and Transition

Yalta agreements. Anyone who had just succeeded to the presidency

with as little advance preparation as Truman had would not likely have
overruled such “experts” from the previous administration as Harriman,
Deane, Forrestal, and Leahy. Determined to assert his authority by con­
veying the appearance of decisiveness, Truman assumed without hesita­
tion the firm attitude they recommended. To a man of Truman’s blunt,
contentious personality, this tough policy must have seemed particularly
congenial. But to view the new President’s confrontation with Molotov
as the opening move in a well-planned, long-range strategy for dealing
with the Soviet Union is to presume a degree of foresight and consist­
ency which simply was not present during the early days of the Truman
Administration.15
“Getting tough with Russia” involved more than mere rhetoric. The
American people would have to abandon certain recently acquired but
strongly held assumptions: that there was no fundamental conflict of in­
terest between the United States and the Soviet Union; that both na­
tions could rely on the United Nations to guarantee their postwar secu­
rity. “Getting tough with Russia” would also require Americans to
depart from certain traditions which had always influenced their diplo­
macy: nonentanglement in the political affairs of Europe, and fear of a
large-scale peacetime military establishment. Under the pressures of the
Cold War Americans eventually did give up these assumptions and tra­
ditions, but this took time. Even in the unlikely event that in April,
1945, Truman was clear in his own mind on the need to reverse Ameri­
can policy toward the Soviet Union, public opinion would have signifi­
cantly limited any moves in that direction for some time to come.

II
Truman also followed his predecessor’s policy in the area of military
strategy, but here the effect was to avoid conflict with the Soviet Union.
Throughout the war, Roosevelt and his generals had employed the
armed forces for the sole purpose of defeating the Axis, without regard
to the political make-up of the postwar world. As the battle against Ger­
many entered its last month, however, Prime Minister Churchill
15 For a contrary view, see Alperovitz, Atomic Diplomacy, passim.
Victory and Transition 207

launched a vigorous challenge to this procedure, arguing that Eisenhow­

er's troops should deploy themselves in such a way as to improve the
West's bargaining position with the Russians. Simultaneously, Washing­
ton officials were beginning to question whether Soviet entry into the
war against Japan was still worth the political price Roosevelt had
promised to pay at Yalta. After consulting with his military advisers,
Truman rejected both of these attempts to revise strategy in the light of
political considerations, thus continuing another of the precedents Roo­
sevelt had set.
Churchill's initiative originated shortly before F.D.R.'s death, when
Eisenhower announced his intention not to try to take Berlin, but in­
stead to halt his troops at the Elbe River. The General had several rea­
sons for doing this. He wanted to reach agreement with Moscow on a
clear line of demarcation which would prevent inadvertent clashes be­
tween the Red Army and Anglo-American forces as they drove toward
each other across Germany. Moreover, a single thrust in the direction of
Berlin might have exposed Eisenhower's flanks to attacks from the Ger­
man army, or at least have allowed remnants of that force to escape to
the “National Redoubt" which SHAEF intelligence believed Hitler was
preparing in the Alps. Either situation would prolong the war, delaying
the badly needed redeployment of American troops to the Pacific. Fi­
nally, Eisenhower's decision reflected the principle which American
strategists had followed throughout the war: that military plans should
aim at the destruction of enemy forces wherever they were, not at the
capture of fixed geographical objectives.16
The British Prime Minister had objected to Eisenhower's decision,
both on military and on political grounds. Berlin still retained a “high
strategic importance," he wrote Roosevelt on April 1, 1945, if for no
other reason than that the fall of Berlin would signal defeat to the Ger­
man people. But even more significantly, if the Russians took Berlin
“will not their impression that they have been the overwhelming contrib­
utor to our common victory be unduly imprinted In their minds, and
may this not lead them into a mood which will raise grave and formida­
ble difficulties in the future?" Roosevelt and the Joint Chiefs of Staff re-
16 Stephen E. Ambrose, Eisenhower and Berlin, 1943: The Decision to Halt at the
Elbe, chapters 3 and 4; Forrest C. Pogue, “The Decision to Halt at the Elbe,“ in
Greenfield, ed.. Command Decisions, pp. 479—92.
208 Victory and Transition

jected Churchill's argument. “Such psychological and political advan­

tages as would result from the possible capture of Berlin ahead of the
Russians,” the Joint Chiefs noted on April 6, “should not override the
imperative military consideration, which in our opinion is the destruc­
tion and dismemberment of the German armed forces.” 17
But even the decision to stop at the Elbe would leave Anglo-Ameri­
can forces deep within the occupation zone which the Big Three had
previously assigned to the Soviet Union. On April 18, Churchill sug­
gested to President Truman that Eisenhower's troops not withdraw from
their advanced positions until certain concessions had been obtained
from the Russians. The Prime Minister mentioned the need to secure
Moscow's cooperation in establishing the four-power Allied Control
Commission in Berlin, the fact, that the British and American zones
would need food from the primarily agricultural Soviet zone, and the ap­
parent reluctance of the Russians to agree on occupation zones for Aus­
tria. After V-E Day, Churchill escalated his argument. Premature British
and American withdrawal, he told Truman on May 11, would mean
“the tide of Russian domination sweeping forward 120 miles on a front
of 300 or 400 miles,. . . an event which, if it occurred, would be one of
the most melancholy in history.” The Anglo-Americans should not move
their forces “until satisfied about Russian policies in Poland, Germany,
and the Danube basin.” One day later the Prime Minister used the
phrase “iron curtain” for the first time to describe the division of Europe
between the Russians and the West. By the end of May, the British were
insisting that no withdrawals take place until “the whole question of the
future relations of the two Governments with the Soviet Government in
Europe” had been resolved. “Nothing really important has been settled
17 Churchill to Roosevelt, April 1, 1945, printed in Churchill, Triumph and Trag­
edy, pp. 398—99; Joint Chiefs of Staff memorandum of April 6, 1945, quoted in
Pogue, The Supreme Command, pp. 444—45. Roosevelt’s reply to Churchill, drafted
by Marshall, is summarized in Pogue, “The Decision to Halt at the Elbe,” p. 485. Ei­
senhower wrote to Marshall on April 7: “I am the first to admit that a war is waged
in pursuance of political aims, and if the Combined Chiefs of Staff should decide that
the Allied effort to take Berlin outweighs purely military considerations in this thea­
ter, I would cheerfully readjust my plans and my thinking so as to carry out such an
operation.” (Eisenhower to Marshall, April 7, 1945, Eisenhower Papers, IV, 2592.)
The tone of Eisenhower’s dispatch, however, makes it dear that he did not expect
such a drastic reversal of policy.
Victory and Transition 209

yet,” Churchill warned Truman on June 4, “and you and I will have to
bear great responsibility for the future.” 18
These increasingly importunate messages from London failed to im­
press American officials. The State Department opposed using the labori­
ously agreed-upon zonal boundaries as bargaining devices, arguing that
this would retard rather than promote Russian cooperation in the occu­
pation of Germany. General Eisenhower wrote with some asperity on
April 23:
I do not quite understand why the Prime Minister has been so determined to
intermingle political and military considerations in attempting to establish a
procedure for the conduct of our own and Russian troops when a meeting
takes place. My original recommendation . . . was a simple one and I
thought provided a very sensible arrangement.
General Marshall agreed. Responding to a suggestion from Churchill
that Eisenhower try to beat the Russians to Prague, Marshall wrote:
“Personally and aside from all logistic, tactical, or strategic implications,
I would be loath to hazard American lives for purely political purposes.”
Secretary of W ar Stimson warned in mid-May that the Russians would
interpret any attempt to reverse the decision on zones as evidence that
London and Washington had formed an alliance against them. This
would make it impossible to work out any agreement on the quadripar­
tite administration of Germany.19
When Russian, American, British, and French military commanders
met in Berlin on June 5, 1945, to organize the four-power occupation of
Germany, Marshal Zhukov made it clear that the Soviet Union would
not allow the quadripartite control machinery to go into operation until
all troops had been removed to their respective zones. Robert Murphy,
political adviser to Eisenhower, informed the State Department that the
Supreme Commander did not consider retention of American forces in
the Soviet zone wise: “It is pretty obvious to all concerned that we really
18 Churchill to Truman, April 18, 24, June 4, 1945, FR: 1945, III, 231-32,
240-41, 326; Churchill to Truman, May 11, 12, 1945, FR: Potsdam, I, 6-7, 9; Brit­
ish aide-mémoire, May 28, 1945, FR: 1945, III, 313.
19 Stettinius to Leahy, April 21, 1945, FR: 1945, III, 235-36; Eisenhower to Mar­
shall, April 23, 1945, quoted in Pogue, The Supreme Command, p. 486; memoran­
dum by John J. McCloy of telephone conversation with Stimson, May 19, 1945,
Stimson MSS, Box 421.
210 Victory and Transition

are desirous of removing our forces and that it is only a question of time
when we will inevitably do so.” Harry Hopkins warned Truman on
June 8 that failure to withdraw Anglo-American troops into their as­
signed occupation zones “is certain to be misunderstood by Russia as
well as at home.” Accordingly, Truman informed Churchill on June 11
that in view of these considerations, “I am unable to delay the with­
drawal of American troops from the Soviet zone in order to use pressure
in the settlement of other problems.” Churchill replied bitterly on the
14th: “Obviously we are obliged to conform to your decision. . . . I sin­
cerely hope that your action will in the long run make for a lasting
peace in Europe.” 20
Truman later explained that although “politically we would have
been pleased to see our lines extend as far to the east as possible,” there
were two reasons why he could not accept Churchill’s proposal. Logisti­
cal considerations made it necessary to shift American troops from Eu­
rope to the Far East as quickly as possible, thus restricting opportunities
for challenging Russian policy in Europe. Moreover, Truman believed
that the best way to handle the Soviet Union was “to stick carefully to
our agreements and to try our best to make the Russians carry out their
agreements.” The United States could hardly disregard the commitments
on occupation zones which Roosevelt had made, while at the same time
insisting that Moscow carry out to the letter the Yalta agreements on
Poland. Churchill, in retrospect, understood Truman’s position well:
The case as presented to him so soon after his accession to power was
whether or not to depart from and in a sense repudiate the policy of the
American and British Governments agreed under his illustrious predecessor.
. . . His responsibility at this point was limited to deciding whether circum­
stances had changed so fundamentally that an entirely different procedure
should be adopted, with the likelihood of having to face accusations of
20 Eisenhower to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, June 6, 1945, FR: 1945, III, 328—29;
Murphy to Stettinius, June 6, 1945, ibid., p. 331; Hopkins to Truman, June 8, 1945,
ibid,, p. 333; Truman to Churchill, June 11, 1945, ibid., pp. 133—34; Churchill to
Truman, June 14, 1945, ibid., pp. 134—35. Ironically, Stalin later requested a delay in
the redeployment of troops because the American and British zones in Berlin had not
yet been cleared of mines, and because Zhukov and other Soviet commanders had to
go to Moscow on June 24 to participate in a parade. (Stalin to Truman, June 16,
1945, FR: 1945, III, 137.) The actual withdrawal into occupation zones took place on
July 1.
Victory and Transition 211

breach of faith. Those who are only wise after the event should hold their
peace.21
The new President demonstrated a similar reluctance to revise Roose­
velt's military policies in the Far East. Shortly after entering the White
House, Truman had advised both Soviet Foreign Minister Molotov and
General Patrick J. Hurley, United States ambassador to China, that he
would carry out the agreement Roosevelt had made at Yalta regarding
Soviet entry into the war against Japan. For reasons of security, however,
Chiang Kai-shek still had not been told of this arrangement, made
largely at the expense of his country. This delay gave the State Depart­
ment the opportunity to review the Yalta accord in the light of recent
difficulties with the Russians in Eastern Europe. Hurley warned Truman
on May 10 that Chiang would have to be informed of the Yalta agree­
ment before long, since Russian military preparations in the Far East
were becoming increasingly obvious. But the President, aware of the re­
view his diplomatic advisers were undertaking, asked Hurley to delay
telling Chiang for a while longer.22
Ambassador Harriman and Navy Secretary Forrestal had raised the
need for a réévaluation of American political objectives in the Far East
early in May. The time had arrived, Harriman told Forrestal on the
11th, “to come to a conclusion about the necessity for the early entrance
of Russia into the Japanese war." The next day Harriman, Forrestal,
Acting Secretary of State Grew, and Assistant Secretary of War John J.
McCloy met to discuss, as Grew told Stettinius, “whether we were going
to support what had been done at Yalta." As a result of this meeting,
the State Department sent an official inquiry to the War and Navy de­
partments asking: (1) whether military authorities considered Soviet
entry into the Japanese war vital enough to preclude seeking Moscow's
21 Truman, Year o f Decisions, pp. 211, 214, 217; Churchill, Triumph and Tragedy,
p. 487.
22 Bohlen memorandum, Truman-Molotov conversation, April 22, 1945, FR: 1945,
V, 236; Herbert Feis, The China Tangle, p. 283; Hurley to Truman, May 10, 1945,
FR: 1945, VII, 865—68; Truman to Hurley, May 12, 1945, ibid., p. 868. Hurley later
maintained that Roosevelt had authorized him to seek a revision of the Yalta Far East­
ern agreement, but the available evidence does not support this assertion. See, on this
matter, Russell D. Buhite, “Patrick J. Hurley and the Yalta Far Eastern Agreement,”
Pacific Historical Review, XXXVII (August, 1968), 343—53.
212 Victory and Transition

agreement “to certain desirable political objectives in the Far East prior
to such entry”; (2) whether “the Yalta decision in regard to Soviet polit­
ical desires in the Far East [should} be reconsidered or carried into ef­
fect in whole or in part”; and (3) whether the Russians, provided they
entered the war, should be given a role in the occupation of Japan The
additional political commitments which the department hoped to obtain
from the Russians included a pledge to encourage Chinese Communist
cooperation with Chiang Kai-shek, “unequivocal adherence of the Soviet
Government to the Cairo Declaration regarding the return of Manchu­
ria to Chinese sovereignty,” establishment of a four-power trusteeship
over Korea, and emergency landing rights for American commercial air­
planes in the Kurile Islands.23
Military officials still considered Soviet participation in the Pacific
War highly desirable, though not absolutely necessary for final victory
over Japan. General Douglas MacArthur had told Forrestal in February,
1945, that Russian entry into the war would greatly facilitate an Ameri­
can invasion of the Japanese home islands by tying down the large
Kwantung Army in Manchuria. Upon the recommendation of General
Deane, the Joint Chiefs of Staff had decided early in April that the
United States would not need air bases in Siberia, but they still agreed
with MacArthur that a Soviet declaration of war would reduce Ameri­
can losses and help shorten the war. General Marshall noted later that
month that the Russians had the capacity “to delay their entry into the
Far Eastern war until we had done all the dirty work.” The Army Chief
of Staff hoped for Moscow's assistance “at a time when it would be help­
ful to us.” Truman later recalled estimates from military experts that an
invasion of Japan might cost half a million American casualties, hence
“Russian entry into the war against Japan was highly important to
us.” 24
The unknown factor which made it difficult to evaluate the need for
23Millis, ed., The Forrestal Diaries, pp. 52, 55—56; Grew memorandum of tele­
phone conversation with Stettinius, May 12, 1945, Grew MSS; Grew to Forrestal and
Stettinius, May 12, 1945, FR: 1943, VII, 869-70.
24 Forrestal memorandum, conversation with MacArthur, February 28, 1945, Millis,
ed., The Forrestal Diaries, p. 31; Deane, The Strange Alliance, pp. 262—68; Bohlen
notes, Marshall meeting with Truman and other advisers, April 23, 1945, FR: 1943,
V, 254; Truman, Year o f Decisions, p. 265. See also Louis Morton, “Soviet Interven­
tion in the W ar with Japan/’ Foreign Affairs, XL (July, 1962), 658.
Victory and Transition 213

Soviet military assistance in the Pacific, however, was the atomic bomb,
upon which the United States and Great Britain had been working se­
cretly since the beginning of the war. “These are vital questions and I
am very glad the State Department has brought them up,” Secretary of
W ar Stimson noted on May 13; “the questions cut very deep and in my
opinion are powerfully connected with our success with S-l [the
bom b]Stim son at first wanted to take no position, suggesting that the
United States simply stay out of arguments with the Russians until the
bomb was ready. But the State Department pointed out that Truman
had already agreed to meet Churchill and Stalin in Germany in July,
and that the question of Russia's role in the Far East would have to be
settled by then. “Over any such tangled wave of problems the S-l secret
would be dominant,” the Secretary of War mused in his diary, “and yet
we will not know until after that time probably, until after that meet­
ing, whether this is a weapon in our hands or not. W e think it will be
shortly afterwards, but it seems a terrible thing to gamble with such big
stakes in diplomacy without having your master card in your hand.” The
W ar Department therefore replied to the State Department's inquiry by
noting that “Russian entry will have a profound military effect in that
almost certainly it will materially shorten the war and thus save Ameri­
can lives.” However, military officials continued to believe that the Rus­
sians would go to war with Japan when they got ready, regardless of
what the United States did in the political field, and so expressed no
objections to State Department efforts to seek additional clarification of
the conditions for Soviet entry.25
Stalin gave the assurances the State Department wanted in a conver­
sation with Harry Hopkins and Averell Harriman in Moscow on May
28, 1945. The Soviet Union would be ready to enter the war against
Japan on August 8, he said, although the actual date would depend “on
the execution of the agreement made at Yalta concerning Soviet de­
sires.” It would be necessary to have the Chinese accept Russia's political
demands “in order to justify entry into the Pacific War in the eyes of the
Soviet people.” But at the same time, Stalin assured Hopkins and Harri­
man that the Soviet Union had no desire to challenge the American
25 Stimson Diary, May 13, 14, 15, 1945, Stimson MSS; Stimson to Grew, May 21,
1945, FR: 1943, VII, 876—78. Forrestal associated the Navy Department with Stim-
son’s conclusions. (Forrestal to Grew, May 21, 1945, ibid., p. 878.)
214 Victory and Transition

“open door” policy in China, that Chiang Kai-shek's representatives, not

the Chinese Communists, would be allowed to set up civil administra­
tion in parts of Manchuria liberated by the Red Army, and that while
he, Stalin, knew little of the various Chinese leaders, he thought
“Chiang Kai-shek was the best of the lot and would be the one to under­
take the unification of China.” The Russian leader also endorsed a four-
power trusteeship for Korea.26
Reassured by these developments, Truman on June 9 instructed Hur­
ley to tell Chiang Kai-shek about the Yalta Far Eastern agreement. On
the same day he met with Dr. T. V. Soong, the foreign minister of
China, and informed him that the United States was “definitely commit­
ted to the agreements reached by President Roosevelt.” One week later,
Truman reviewed plans for the invasion of Japan with his military ad­
visers. General Marshall, speaking for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, stressed
the advantages of Soviet participation as a means of containing Japanese
troops in Manchuria and possibly shortening the war. “The impact of
Russian entry on the already hopeless Japanese,” he pointed out, “may
well be the decisive action levering them into capitulation.” Stimson
agreed with Marshall but, having the atomic bomb firmly in mind, ex­
pressed hope “for some fruitfiil accomplishment by other means.” Forres-
tal observed that there would still be time to reconsider the proposed
military operations “in the light of subsequent events.” Truman then ap­
proved the Joint Chiefs' strategy for the invasion of Japan, and an­
nounced that one of his major objectives at the forthcoming Big Three
meeting would be “to get from Russia all.the assistance in the wat that
was possible.” 27
Several years later, T rum an summarized his attitude tow ard the Y alta
Far Eastern agreem ent in a letter to H enry Stimson:
Some agreements were made early in 1943 [sic] to keep Russia in the war.
Naturally if those agreements had been made after the surrender of Ger-
26 Bohlen memorandum, Hopkins-Staiin conversation, May 28, 1945, FR: 1945,
VII, 887—91. See also Hopkins* report to Truman of this conference, printed in Sher­
wood, Roosevelt and Hopkins, pp. 902—3.
27 Truman to Hurley, June 9* 1945, FR: 1945, VII, 897-98; Grew memorandum,
Truman-Soong conversation, June 9, 1945, ibid., p. 896; Joint Chiefs of Staff minutes,
meeting with Truman, Forrestal, McCloy, and Stimson, June 18, 1945, FR: Potsdam,
I, 903—9. See also Truman, Year o f Decisions, p. 265.
Victory and Transition 215

many and Japan they no doubt would have been arranged in a different
manner. I made it my business to try to carry out agreements as they
were made when the war was on—maybe that should not have been done
but I would still follow that procedure because I believe when agree­
ments are made they should be kept. That is not the policy of the Rus­
sian government.28

Truman’s conduct of the war during the brief period of time between his
accession to the presidency and the achievement of victory over Ger­
many and Japan thus offers little evidence that the new Chief Executive
had reversed his predecessor’s policy of cooperation with the Soviet
Union. As under Roosevelt, victory, not postwar political advantage, re­
mained the primary goal of the American military effort right up to the
moment of its attainment.

m
In the field of economic policy, the Roosevelt Administration in the
months before F.D.R.’s death had toughened its position toward the So­
viet Union. Prior to the Yalta Conference, the President had endorsed
the State Department’s decision to move slowly on extension of a post­
war loan to the USSR. Roosevelt had taken a firm stand on reparations
at the Big Three conference, indicating that the United States would not
support the indiscriminate removal of German industrial equipment to
rebuild the Soviet economy, and accepting only with the greatest reluc­
tance the Russian figure of $20 billion “as a basis of negotiations’’ in the
tripartite Reparations Commission. In March, the Administration had
decided to terminate negotiations with Moscow on the use of lend-lease
for reconstruction. Domestic considerations influenced the President’s at­
titude in each of these cases: Congress had made it clear that it would
not support reconstruction of foreign economies at the expense of the
American taxpayer. But the Administration’s political interests at home
also fit in with a diplomatic tactic of increasing importance— the use
of economic pressure to secure Soviet compliance with American plans
for the postwar world.
28 Truman to Stimson, July 7, 1950, quoted in Hillman, Mr. President, p. 55.
216 Victory and Transition

Ambassador Harriman demonstrated the relationship between repara­

tions, lend-lease, and the postwar reconstruction loan in a series of tele­
grams sent to Washington during the week immediately preceding Roo­
sevelt's death. “We now have ample proof,” he noted on April 4, 1945,
“that the Soviet Government views all matters from the standpoint of
their own selfish interests”:
The Soviet Government will end this war with the largest gold reserve of
any country except the United States, will have large quantities of Lend-
Lease material and equipment not used or worn out in the war with which
to assist their reconstruction, will ruthlessly strip the enemy countries they
have occupied of everything they can move, will control the foreign trade of
countries under their domination as far as practicable to the benefit of the
Soviet Union, will use political and economic pressure on other countries in­
cluding South America to force trade arrangements to their own advantage
and at the same time they will demand from us every form of aid and assist­
ance which they think they can get.
If the United States was to protect its vital interests, Harriman con­
cluded, it would have to adopt “a more positive policy of using our eco­
nomic influence to further our broad political ideals.” Washington
should continue to seek friendly relations with the Soviet Union, but on
a strictly quid pro quo basis. “This means tying our economic assistance
directly into our political problems with the Soviet Union.” 29
Harriman still favored extending a loan to Russia, but now regarded
it chiefly as a device for extracting political concessions. He believed that
the Russians, using their own resources, could regain their prewar level
of capital investment by 1948. They could not, however, carry out their
ambitious program of additional economic expansion without purchasing
American industrial equipment. The Soviet Union was weaker internally
than many people thought, he argued, therefore Washington could
safely attach political conditions to any Russian loan. The United States
should work first to meet the economic needs of its Western European
allies, and then allocate to the Russians whatever might be left. Moscow
deserved no special treatment in the matter, and Congress should not be
asked to authorize a special loan. The Administration should begin ne­
gotiations on the extension of credits through the Export-Import Bank.
“It would be inadvisable to give the Soviets the idea that we were cool-
29 Harriman to Stettinius, April 4, 1945, FR: 1945, V, 817—20.
Victory and Transition 217

ing off on our desire to help.” But at the same time “it would be quite
satisfactory to have negotiations on the question of postwar credits drag
along.” 30
The Soviet Union would also depend heavily on German reparations
to achieve its program of postwar economic expansion. The United
States should show sympathy for Moscow’s position, Harriman wrote on
April 3, but since the Russians had demonstrated little willingness to
implement the Yalta decisions, “I . . . see no reason why we should
show eagerness in expediting decisions on reparations, which is one sub­
ject to which the Soviet Government is most anxious to get us commit­
ted.” The Red Army was already removing vast quantities of goods from
Germany as it advanced toward Berlin, and there was no evidence that a
reparations agreement would cause the Russians to show restraint in this
regard. Delaying an agreement, however, might encourage them to co­
operate in shipping food from their agricultural zone to the industrial
areas which the Americans and British would occupy.31
On the matter of lend-lease, Harriman fully supported the Roosevelt
Administration’s decision not to allow the Russians to obtain reconstruc­
tion materials under the Fourth Protocol. There should be no Fifth Pro­
tocol, he argued. “Russian requests should be dealt with on a supply
basis, and we should supply the absolute minimum requirements.” The
United States should continue to fill legitimate Russian military orders,
especially for material to be used against Japan, but after V-E Day “the
Soviet Union should have ample production to meet essential needs in
many fields, and our shipments should be reduced accordingly.” 32
After becoming President, Truman read Harriman’s cables carefully,
and quickly indicated his support for the general policy which the am-
30 Harriman to Stettinius, April 11, 1945, FR: 1945, V, 994-96; minutes of the
Secretary of State's Staff Committee meeting, April 21, 1945, ibid., p. 818; Bohlen
memorandum, Harriman conversation with Truman, April 20, 1945, ibid., p. 232;
and Sulzberger, A Long Row o f Candles, p. 256. Harriman s conclusion that the So­
viet Union could regain its prewar level of capital investment by 1948 was based on a
State Department estimate, forwarded to him on January 26, 1945. (FR: 1945, V,
939, 967.)
31 Harriman to Stettinius, April 3, 1945, FR: 1945, III, 1186. See also Harriman to
Stettinius, March 14, 1945, ibid., pp. 1176—77; Harriman to Stettinius, April 4, 1945,
FR: 1945, V, 817—18; and Harriman to Stettinius, April 6, 1945, FR: 1945, III,
1190- 92.
^H arrim an to Stettinius, March 20, 1945, FR: 1945, V, 988—89; minutes of the
Secretary of State's Staff Committee meeting, April 21, 1945, ibid., pp. 844—45.
218 Victory and Transition

bassador to Moscow had recommended. He intended to be "firm but

fair,” the new Chief Executive told Harriman on April 20; “the Soviet
Union needed us more than we needed them.” During his confrontation
with Molotov three days later, Truman reminded the Soviet foreign
minister that Congress would have to approve “any economic measures
in the foreign field,” and that it would not act without public support.
He hoped “that the Soviet Government would keep these factors in
mind.” 33
The Truman Administration bungled its first attempt to apply the
policy which Harriman recommended, however. The ambassador sug­
gested on May 9, 1945, that in view of Germany's surrender, the United
States should begin curtailing lend-lease shipments to the Soviet Union.
Supplies for possible use against Japan should continue to be sent, but
the Administration should carefully scrutinize, “with a view to our own
interests and policies,” requests for other shipments. The American atti­
tude should be one of firmness, Harriman stressed, “while avoiding any
implication of a threat or any indication of political bargaining.” Two
days later Secretary of War Stimson found Truman “vigorously enthu­
siastic” about implementing “a more realistic policy” on Russian lend-
lease, a position which the President said was “right down his alley.” 34
Undersecretary of State Grew and Foreign Economic Administrator
Crowley, after consulting with the War and Navy departments and Am­
bassador Harriman, recommended to Truman on May 11 that he (1)
continue lend-lease shipments destined for use against the Japanese as
long as Soviet entry into the Far Eastern war was anticipated; (2) con­
tinue to ship supplies needed to complete work on industrial plants al­
ready under construction; (3) cut off all other lend-lease shipments to
the Soviet Union as soon as physically practicable. No new lend-lease
33 Bohlen memorandum, Truman-Harriman conversation, April 20, 1945, FR: 1945,
V, 232; Bohlen memorandum, Truman-Molotov conversation, April 23, 1945, ibid,,
pp. 256—57. Harriman later recalled: “Although he had only been in office for less
than a week, he [Truman] had read all the papers regarding Yalta, the telegrams that
I had sent; and the messages that President Roosevelt had sent to Stalin, and die re­
plies. He was thoroughly briefed.” (Remarks by Harriman at a ceremony commemo­
rating the 25th anniversary of Truman's accession to the presidency, April 11, 1970,
Harry S. Truman Library, Independence, Missouri.) See also Phillips, The Truman
Presidency, p. 79; and Harriman, America and Russia, p. 40.
34 Stettinius to Grew, May 9, 1945, FR: 1945, V, 998; Stimson Diary, May 11,
1945, Stimson MSS.
Victory and Transition 219

protocol should be negotiated to replace the one which would expire on

June 30. Instead the Administration should consider Soviet requests for
aid “on the basis of reasonably accurate information regarding the essen­
tiality of Soviet military supply requirements and in the light of all com­
peting demands for supplies in the changing military situation.” After
listening to the explanations of Grew and Crowley, Truman approved
their proposal.35
But Crowley interpreted the lend-lease curtailment directive far more
literally than Truman or Harriman had intended. Acting on the assump­
tion that the new policy was “when in doubt hold,” instead of “when in
doubt give,” Foreign Economic Administration representatives on the
Soviet Protocol Committee insisted that ships containing Russian lend-
lease material not destined for use in the Far East should turn around
and return to port. Harriman later described himself as having been
“taken aback” by this development. Truman, who had never intended to
cut off supplies already on the way to the Soviet Union, quickly counter­
manded the turn-around order. But the diplomatic damage had been
done. Through a bureaucratic blunder the Truman Administration did
precisely what Harriman had sought to avoid: it gave Moscow the im­
pression that it was trying to extract political concessions through a
crude form of economic pressure.36
35 Grew and Crowley to Truman, May 11, 1945, FR: 1945, V, 999—1000; Truman
to Grew and Crowley, May 11, 1945, ibid., p. 1000. Before delivering this recommen­
dation to the White House, Crowley emphasized to Grew the necessity of making sure
that Truman thoroughly understood what he was signing and “that he will back us up
and keep everyone else out of it.“ Crowley expected trouble from the Russians, and
“he did not want them to be running all over town looking for help.“ (Grew memo­
randum of conversation with Crowley, May 11, 1945, ibid., p. 999«.) In his memoirs,
Truman maintains erroneously that Grew and Crowley got him to sign the lend-lease
termination order on May 8, without informing him of its contents. (Year o f Deci­
sions, pp. 227—29.)
^H errin g , “Lend-Lease to Russia and the Origins of the Cold War,“ pp. 106—8;
Leighton and Coakley, Global Logistics, 1943—45, pp. 695—96; Feis, Between War
and Peace, p. 27. Herring notes that “the hard line on Soviet lend-lease taken by
Crowley and the Foreign Economic Administration seems to have stemmed more from
a rigid legalism than from Russophobia. During the congressional hearings on the ex­
tension of lend-lease, Crowley had made unequivocal commitments that lend-lease was
to be used only to prosecute the war. Imbued with an extremely narrow concept of ex­
ecutive authority and not concerned with the diplomatic impact of his actions, he
waged an unrelenting battle to honor these commitments.“ (“Lend-Lease to Russia,“ p.
108.)
220 Victory and Transition

Stalin told Harry Hopkins at the end of May that the United States
had every right to terminate the flow of lend-lease to the Soviet Union,
but that the abrupt manner in which aid had been cut off was “unfortu­
nate and even brutal.” If Washington’s reluctance to continue lend-lease
shipments was intended to pressure the Russians, Stalin said, it was a
mistake. Accommodations could be arranged if the Americans ap­
proached the Russians on a friendly basis, but reprisals would only have
the opposite effect. Hopkins tried to assure Stalin that the order to un­
load ships bound for Russia had been an error, that the United States
had no intention of using lend-lease to force concessions from the Rus­
sians. Stalin’s bitterness, however, remained unassuaged.37
Meanwhile the Truman Administration, in line with Harriman’s
suggestions, was taking its time about beginning talks with the Russians
on reparations. Molotov discussed the issue at San Francisco on May 7
with Harriman and Edwin W. Pauley, Truman’s newly appointed repre­
sentative to the Allied Reparations Commission. The Russians wanted to
know, Molotov said, when Pauley and his delegation planned to leave
for Moscow, since the Soviet government “attached the greatest impor­
tance to the work of the Reparations Commission and hoped it would
soon get started.” Harriman pointed out that the United States and
Great Britain wanted France to have a place on the commission, since
that country had been given an occupation zone in Germany, but that
the Russians had refused to agree to this without admitting Poland and
Yugoslavia as well. Molotov suggested that it might expedite matters to
return to the original Yalta formula of a strictly tripartite organization.
Pauley expressed a desire to begin negotiations as soon as possible, but
noted reports that the Russians were already removing from their zone
German industrial equipment which might fall under the category of
reparations. The British and Americans, he insisted, had carefully
avoided this practice. Molotov asserted that the Red Army had taken
only what it needed for prosecution of the war, and that he assumed
American commanders were doing the same thing in the parts of Ger­
many they occupied.38
37 Bohlen notes, Hopkins-Stalin conversation. May 27, 1945, quoted in Sherwood,
Roosevelt and Hopkins, pp. 894—97.
38 Bohlen memorandum, Molotov-Pauley-Harriman conversation. May 7, 1945, FR:
1945, III, 1208—10. Roosevelt had originally named Isador Lubin to represent the
Victory and Transition 221

Shortly after this conversation, the State Department announced that

Pauley and a thirty-man delegation would arrive in Moscow to begin
negotiations early in June, after first surveying conditions in Germany.
This news alarmed George F. Kennan, who was in charge of the Ameri­
can Embassy in Moscow during Harriman's absence in the United States.
If Pauley and his delegation expected to work out a rational agreement
with the Russians after careful study, Kennan warned Harriman, they
were in for a disappointment:
[Russian} demands will be formulated among themselves, on the basis of
considerations which will never be revealed to us, but which will certainly be
political rather than economic. Any efforts on the part of foreign delegations
to pull discussion down to a basis of economic equalities will be met with
repetitious orations about what the Germans did to Russia. In the end, it
will come down to a simple horse trade. How much are we going to make
available to the Russians from our zones, and what price are we going to de­
mand for it?
The United States, Kennan argued, would not need thirty experts to
drive a bargain of this sort. But Harriman, who had seen Pauley's orders,
was able to reassure his anxious subordinate: “We have nothing to
worry about in regard to the size of the reparations delegation . . . Mr.
Pauley's instructions are very firm and while we may not reach any
agreement I have no fears about us giving in.” 39
Harriman was right. Pauley's directive, as approved by Truman on
May 18, placed primary emphasis on the need to maintain the German
economy intact, even if this meant restricting reparations shipments to
Russia. While removals from existing facilities would inevitably lower
the German standard of living, they “should be held within such limits
as to leave the German people with sufficient means to provide a mini­
mum subsistence . . . without sustained outside relief.” Remaining in-
United States on the Reparations Commission, but Truman replaced him with Pauley,
treasurer of the Democratic National Committee and a personal friend, because “I felt
that the position required a tough bargainer, someone who could be as tough as Molo­
tov.” Lubin had been replaced, Truman told Henry Morgenthau, Jr., because "I don’t
think he is a big enough man.” Lubin did agree to remain on the commission as Pau­
ley’s associate, however. (Truman, Year o f Decisions, p. 308; Blum, Morgenthau Dia­
ries: Years o f War, p. 453.) For negotiations regarding composition of the Repara­
tions Commission, see FR: 1945, III, 1177—97.
39 Grew to Kennan, May 13, 1945, FR: 1945, III, 1211; Kennan to Harriman, May
14, 1945, ibid,, pp. 1211—13; Harriman to Kennan, May 20, 1945, ibid., p. 1213».
222 Victory and Transition

dustrial production would be used first to provide for the basic needs of
the German people and to pay for essential imports, and only then as
reparations. No plan could be approved which would “put the United
States in a position where it will have to assume responsibility for sus­
tained relief to the German people.” 40
“Germany would have to be fed,” Truman later explained, “and I was
determined to see that it would not once again be charity . . . from us
that fed her.” In maintaining this position, the President had no inten­
tion of denying reparations to the Soviet Union. Like Roosevelt, how­
ever, he sought some means of limiting excessive removals, so that the
United States would not once more find itself obliged to prop up Ger­
many’s economy while the Germans produced reparations for Washing­
ton’s former allies. He also hoped to make it clear to the Russians that
they could not expect massive shipments of equipment from the indus­
trialized Western zones without committing themselves to help feed the
people of that area.41
Harriman’s suggestions also helped to clarify Washington’s thinking
with regard to a postwar loan to the Soviet Union. Emilio G. Collado,
director of the State Department’s Office of Financial and Development
Policy, recommended in April that after conclusion of the San Francisco
Conference the Administration should begin making legislative arrange­
ments to permit an Export-Import Bank loan to Russia “if political con­
ditions are favorable.” The loan would be not $6 billion, as the Russians
had proposed, but $1 billion. The interest rate would be in accord with
the bank’s regular rates, roughly double the Soviet proposal of per­
cent. On June 2, 1945, Grew informed Harriman that the Administra­
tion would soon ask Congress to expand the Export-Import Bank’s lend­
ing authority, setting aside $1 billion for the Soviet Union “if events so
warrant.” 42
In mid-July, Foreign Economic Administrator Crowley asked Con­
gress to raise the bank’s loan ceiling from $700 million to $3.5 billion,
and to repeal the Johnson Act’s prohibition on loans to defaulting gov-
40 “Instructions for the United States Representative on the Allied Commission on
Reparations,“ May 18, 1945, FR: 1945, III, 1222-27.
41 Truman, Year o f Decisions, p. 308.
42 Collado to Stettinius and Clayton, April 19, 1945, FR: 1945, V, 997—98; Grew
to Harriman, June 2, 1945, ibid., pp. 1011—12.
Victory and Transition 223

ernments. In answer to a question from Senator Robert A. Taft, Crowley

acknowledged that between $700 million and $1 billion of the new
lending authority would be tentatively allocated for a loan to the Soviet
Union. Taft criticized the Administration request as an attempt to cir­
cumvent congressional prohibitions on the use of lend-lease for recon­
struction, while Representative Everett M. Dirksen tried unsuccessfully
to amend the bill to deny credits to any nation which refused to follow
the principles of the Atlantic Charter. “I do not want a single American
dollar to undo the work of a single American GI who is sleeping in a
little cemetery in some far-off country/* Dirksen proclaimed. The bill
easily passed Congress after only brief debate, however, and Truman
signed it into law on July 3.1,1945.43
The Truman Administration could now lend up to $1 billion to the
Soviet Union through the Export-Import Bank, without precipitating an
embarrassing debate in Congress. Whether the Administration would
actually use this authority, however, depended upon the course of
Soviet-American relations. The loan to Russia, originally conceived of as
a device to ensure economic prosperity at home, had now become a
weapon in the growing political rivalry with Moscow. Things had
changed, Fortune magazine observed, since Eric Johnston's trip to the
Soviet Union in 1944. American economists now worried less about pro­
viding fall employment after the war. The West European market for
American products had greatly exceeded expectations. But most impor­
tant were changes in the political climate: Moscow's actions in Eastern
Europe had "frittered away Russia's enormous store of goodwill in this
country.'' Until these "profound political difficulties'' were resolved, the
loan to Russia should remain in abeyance.44
Truman's foreign economic policy reflected the unique position in
which Americans found themselves at the end of World W ar II. The
United States had emerged from the war with a greatly expanded in­
dustrial plant at a time when all of the world's other major powers had
4ZNew York Times, July 18, 1945; Congressional Record, July 13 and 20, 1945,
pp. 7535—48, 7827—41; Export-Import Bank, Semiannual Report to Congress for the
Period July-December, 1945, p. 9.
44 Fortune, XXXII (July, 1945), 110. See also Herbert Feis, “Political Aspects of
Foreign Loans,” Foreign Affairs, XXIII (July, 1945), 609—19; and William Henry
Chamberlin, “Can We Do Business with Stalin?“ American Mercury, LXI (August,
1945), 194-201.
224 Victory and Transition

suffered serious economic losses. Many influential Americans believed

that Washington could take advantage of this situation by using recon­
struction assistance to shape political developments in the postwar world
to its liking. "Let us not forget,” Bernard Baruch reminded Truman in
June, 1945, "that it is on the productive capacity of America that all
countries must rely for the comforts— even the necessities— that a
modern world will demand. We have the mass production and the
know-how. Without us the rest of the world cannot recuperate; it can­
not rebuild, feed, house or clothe itself.” 45 Although Roosevelt might
have handled matters like lend-lease termination more gracefully, it
seems unlikely that he could have resisted the opportunity presented by
this unusual situation any more than Truman did.
But Washington's effort to employ economic power for political pur­
poses rested on two shaky assumptions: first, that other countries needed
reconstruction aid so badly that they would accept whatever political
conditions the United States imposed; and second, that Congress and the
American taxpayer, both yearning for a return to fiscal normalcy, would
appropriate the large sums of money required to finance such assistance.
Events of late 1945 and early 1946 would make it clear that, in the case
of the Soviet Union, neither of these assumptions could be taken for
granted.

IV
The United Nations Conference on International Organization opened
in a blare of publicity at San Francisco on April 25, 1945. This meeting,
for which so many Americans held such high hopes, had the ironic effect
of aggravating rather than alleviating international tensions, for it re­
vealed to the public the full extent of the differences between Russia and
the West. Yet at the same time it stimulated a reconsideration of policy
toward the Soviet Union within the Truman Administration which led
to a renewed effort to settle problems with Moscow through personal di­
plomacy.
Acrimony rather than harmony seemed the keynote during the early
45 Baruch to Truman, June 8, 1945, Baruch MSS, “Memoranda— President Tru­
man.”
Victory and Transition 225

sessions at San Francisco. Molotov refused to accept the custom that the
head of the host nation’s delegation serve as chairman, and had to be
put off* with a compromise. Two days after the conference opened the
Russian foreign minister asked for the admission of representatives from
the Lublin Polish government, arguing that they deserved a place at San
Francisco because under the Yalta agreement their group was to form
the basis of the new provisional government in Warsaw. Senator Arthur
H. Vandenberg, the leading Republican on the American delegation,
virtually ordered Secretary of State Stettinius to reject Molotov’s pro­
posal at once and in public. Stettinius instantly complied. Vandenberg
wrote in his diary that had the Lublin Poles been admitted, “it would
have wrecked any chance of American approval of the work of the
Conference.” Tensions increased further on May 4, 1945, when the
Soviet government acknowledged that it had arrested sixteen Polish
underground leaders after having promised them safe conduct to come
to Moscow to discuss broadening the Lublin regime. “This is bad
business,” Vandenberg noted. “If it should develop that the 16 are
dead— ?????” 46
These developments caused genuine concern among Americans who
had up to this time generally sympathized with the Russian point of
view. In a series of editorial comments from April through June the
New Republic, for example, criticized Moscow’s refusal to reorganize the
Lublin Polish government, arguing that the Yalta agreement itself had
been a compromise and that no further compromises should be neces­
sary. The Soviet Union seemed to be acting more to safeguard its own
interests than from a desire to make the United Nations work. While
this was to be expected in view of recent Russian history, it could have a
most unfortunate effect upon public opinion in the United States. Senate
ratification of the United Nations Charter might well depend on what
the Russians did in Poland. Soviet diplomats would have to play “a
slightly more subtle game than in the past few months if the immense
store of good will which they have won . . . is not to be frittered away.”
Incidents such as the arrest of the sixteen underground leaders, the New
Republic thought, demonstrated either ignorance of, or contempt for, the
role of public opinion in the West. “TRB” commented that “at times it
46 Vandenberg Diary, April 25, 27, May 4, 1945, Vandenberg, ed.. Private Papers,
pp. 177-78, 181, 185-86.
226 Victory and Transition

has seemed that the Soviet leaders were trying to throw away Washing­
ton’s good will.” 47
But not all observers blamed the Russians for the disagreements at
San Francisco. Many felt the United States to be just as reluctant to en­
trust its security to the new world organization. In order to maintain in­
ter-American unity, Stettinius felt he had to invite Argentina to the con­
ference. Molotov objected to admitting a state which had been
sympathetic to the Nazis while Poland was still excluded from the world
organization, but the Secretary of State insisted on marshaling the votes
of the Latin American countries to push through the United States posi­
tion. This led Time to comment that Washington was playing “a
straight power game” in Latin America “as amoral as Russia’s game in
Eastern Europe,” a judgment which seemed confirmed later in May
when Senator Vandenberg successfully demanded that the Monroe Doc­
trine be exempted from the jurisdiction of the Security Council. “I think
that it’s not asking too much to have our little region over here,” Secre­
tary of W ar Stimson commented, “if she [Russia} is going to take these
steps. . . of building up friendly protectorates around her.” 48
More alarming than these actions, however, were indications that the
United States was using the San Francisco Conference as a platform
from which to denounce the Russians. I.F. Stone brooded in the Nation
that “too many members of the American delegation conceive this as a
conference for the organization of an anti-Soviet bloc under our leader­
ship.” Writing in the New Republic, Thomas F. Reynolds asserted that
the American delegation had missed no opportunity “to throw rocks in
private at the Soviet hobgoblin.” The editors of the New Republic
feared that a “bitter anti-Soviet bloc in the State Department” was influ­
encing Stettinius, and called for Truman to remove these officials from
their posts. The most disturbing development to come out of San Fran­
cisco, Vera Micheles Dean observed, “was the tendency to believe that a
conflict between the United States and Russia is becoming inevitable.”
In a private conversation with State Department officials, Raymond
47 New Republic, CXII (April 9, 1945), 463; (April 30, 1945), 573, 612-14;
(May 7, 1945), 630-31; (May 21, 1945), 708; (June 4, 1945), 771-72.
48 Time, XLV (May 14, 1945), 38; Vandenberg to Stettinius, May 5, 1945, Van­
denberg MSS; transcript of telephone conversation between Stimson and John J.
McCloy, May 8, 1945, Stimson MSS, Box 420.
Victory and Transition 227

Gram Swing, a prominent liberal newscaster, charged that the United

States representatives at San Francisco were “engaged in building up a
logical record which would give us a clear and unarguable casus belli in
a war which never ought to occur and which clearly could be
avoided.” 49
There did seem to be some basis for these charges. Ambassador Harri-
man had flown to San Francisco immediately after Truman’s interview
with Molotov for the specific purpose “of making everyone understand
that the Soviets . . . were not going to live up to their post-war agree­
ments.” Harriman met with members of the American delegation on the
day the conference opened. Calling attention to Russian attempts “to
chisel, by bluff, pressure, and other unscrupulous methods to get what
they wish,” he charged that Moscow wanted “as much domination over
Eastern Europe as possible.” W hile the United States could not go to
war with the Soviet Union, it should do everything it could to impede
Russian moves in Eastern Europe. During his stay in San Francisco, Har­
riman held several off-the-record press conferences in which he warned
darkly of Soviet intentions. His blunt statements caused several reporters,
among them Swing, to walk out, accusing the ambassador to the Soviet
Union of being a “warmonger.” 50
Senator Vandenberg, the most influential member of the American
delegation, had come to San Francisco determined to halt what he con­
sidered to be appeasement of the Russians. The Yalta agreements on Po­
land had been hard for the Michigan senator to swallow, but he knew
the American people would not go to war with Russia to change them.
The only other alternative was to use the San Francisco Conference to
491. F. Stone, “Anti-Russian Undertow/’ Nation, CLX (May 12, 1945), 534—35;
Thomas F. Reynolds, “The U.S.A. at San Francisco/' New Republic, CXII (June 11,
1945), 810; New Republic, CXII (June 4, 1945), 771-72; Time, XLV (June 11,
1945), 24; Archibald MacLeish memorandum of conversation with Swing, May 21,
1945, Department of State records, 711.61/5-2245.
50 Interview with Harriman, July 16, 1966, John Foster Dulles Oral History Collec­
tion; record of the 16th meeting of the American delegation to the San Francisco Con­
ference, April 25, 1945, FR: 1945, I, 389-90; Charles J. V. Murphy, “W. Averell
Harrim an/’ Life, XXI (December 30, 1946), 64; Harriman, America and Russia, p.
42; MacLeish memorandum of conversation with Swing, May 21, 1945, Department
of State records, 711.61/5-2245. See also MacLeish to Joseph C. Grew, May 26,
1945, ibid., 711.61/5-2645 CS/A; Cox Diary, April 26, 1945, Cox MSS; and Curtis
D. MacDougall, Gideonfs Army, I, 23.
228 Victory and Transition

turn world opinion against the Soviet Union: “I have great hope that
we can here mobilize the conscience of mankind against the aggressor of
tomorrow* It may not prevent World W ar No. 3 someday. But if it fails
it will at least unite civilization against the new aggressor. That achieve­
ment seems to me to be of priceless value.” Vandenberg liberally laced
the diary he kept during the conference with belligerent expressions of
hostility toward the Russians (“we should stand our ground against these
Russian demands and quit appeasing Stalin and Molotov”), and left San
Francisco convinced that the only way to deal with the Russians was to
make no concessions. The lesson of San Francisco was that “we can get
along with Russia i f and when we can convince Russia that we mean
what we say” Vandenberg told a group of Republican senators aftet re­
turning to Washington that the main requirement for dealing with Rus­
sia was “having a mind of our own and sticking to it.” He wrote his
wife shortly after the Senate ratified the United Nations Charter that, in
the final analysis, the success of the world organization would depend
“on Russia and whether we have guts enough to make her behave.” 51
John Foster D ulles, w ho acted as an adviser to the Am erican delega­
tion, shared many o f V andenberg’s suspicions. D ulles doubted the ability
o f th e w orld organization to keep the peace, and believed th at the Rus­
sians had ulterior motives for joining it. They m ight, he felt, be plan­
ning to use the international body as an instrum ent for exercising power
outside their sphere o f influence. W orried th at the U nited N ations could
someday become a Russian tool, D ulles told Vandenberg th at the U nited
States should not join it w ithout first securing the right o f w ithdraw al. 5 2
Officials in W ashington, preoccupied w ith worry over Eastern Europe,
lend-lease, reparations, and the use o f the atom ic bomb, found the
proceedings in San Francisco increasingly irrelevant. To Secretary o f
51 Vandenberg to Frank Januszewski, May 15, 1945, Vandenberg MSS; Vandenberg
Diary, April 27, June 7, 1945, Vandenberg, ed., Private Papers, pp. 182, 208; Harold
H. Burton Diary, July 10, 1945, Burton MSS, Box 138; Vandenberg to Mrs. Vanden­
berg, undated, Vandenberg, ed.. Private Papers, pp. 218—19.
52 Forrestal Diary, April 9, 1945, Millis, ed.. The Forrestal Diaries, pp. 41—42; rec­
ord of the 33d meeting of the American delegation to the San Francisco Conference,
May 8, 1945, FR: 1945, I, 644; Vandenberg Diary, May 19, 1945, Vandenberg, ed..
Private Papers, pp. 194—95. On Dulles' reservations about the United Nations see also
the interviews with Robert D. Murphy, May 19, 1965, and Andrew Cordier, Febiuary
I, 1967, Dulles Oral History Collection; and Dulles to Vandenberg, July 10, 1945,
Vandenberg MSS.
Victory and Transition 229

W ar Stimson, the situation seemed “unreal,” with the delegates “bab­

bling on as if there were no . . . great issues pending.” Acting Secretary
of State Joseph Grew felt that the United Nations “will be incapable of
preserving peace and security” because the right of veto in the Security
Council would prevent collective action against “the one certain future
enemy, Soviet Russia.” Russian actions in Eastern Europe had already
demonstrated the kind of “world pattern” Moscow sought to create. The
Russians would soon attempt to expand their influence through the rest
of Europe, the Near East, and the Far East. “A future war with Soviet
Russia,” Grew concluded bleakly, “is as certain as anything in this
world.” 53
Joseph E. Davies wrote to James F. Byrnes on May 10 that “the Rus­
sian situation . . . is deteriorating so rapidly that it is frightening.” Jus­
tice Felix Frankfurter expressed concern about growing anti-Russian sen­
timent within the government in two conversations with Davies later
that month. Deputy Foreign Economic Administrator Oscar Cox was so
worried over the disturbing diplomatic situation that he set to work on
an elaborate analysis of Soviet-American relations designed to show that
no reason for conflict between the two nations existed. Assistant Secre­
tary of State Archibald MacLeish warned on May 22 that “explicit refer­
ence to the possibility of a war with Russia is becoming more common
in the American press from day to day.” On the same day, former Un­
dersecretary of State Stunner Welles charged publicly that “in five short
weeks since the death of President Roosevelt the policy which he so
painstakingly carried out has been changed. Our Government now ap­
pears to the Russians as the spearhead of an apparent bloc of the west­
ern nations opposed to the Soviet Union.” 54
Fears that the Truman Administration had reversed Roosevelt's policy
toward the Soviet Union turned out to be premature, as Harry Hopkins*
trip to Moscow soon showed. But the public Russian-American confron-

53 Stimson Diary, May 15, 1945, Stimson MSS; Grew memorandum of May 19,
1945, quoted in Joseph C. Grew, Turbulent Era: A Diplomatic Record o f Forty Years,
1904-1945, II, 1445-46.
54 Davies to Byrnes, May 10, 1945, Davies Diary, May 13 and 18, 1945, Davies
MSS, Boxes 16 and 17; Cox Diary, May 12—29, 1945, Cox MSS; MacLeish memoran­
dum of conversation with Swing, May 22, 1945, Department of State records,
711.61/5-2245; Welles radio broadcast, May 22, 1945, reprinted in the Congressional
Record, 1945 appendix, pp. A2507—A2508.
230 Victory and Transition

tation at San Francisco had two effects which were significant for the fu­
ture: It exposed prominent Republicans like Dulles and Vandenberg to
the frustrations of dealing with the Russians. Both men came away from
the experience convinced that the only way to negotiate with Moscow
was to take a firm position and avoid compromise. It also made clear to
the American people the depth and extent of the divisions which sepa­
rated the Soviet Union and the United States. Opinion polls showed that
by the middle of May, 1945, the number of Americans who doubted
Russia's willingness to cooperate with the United States after the war
had risen to 38 percent of those questioned, the highest figure since
March of 1942. Even more significantly, Americans for the first time at­
tributed the difficulties in inter-Allied relations more to the Soviet
Union than to Great Britain. As late as February, 1945, a majority of
those dissatisfied with the extent of Big Three cooperation had held Brit­
ain responsible. But San Francisco shifted the blame to Russia, where it
would stay for the rest of the Cold War.55
/

V
The striking deterioration in relations with Russia which took place in
the month following Roosevelt's death left the new President deeply
worried. Truman still used belligerent rhetoric in discussing the USSR.
Early in May he told Elmer Benson, acting chairman of the National
Citizens' Political Action Committee, that the Russians were “like bulls
in a china shop. . . . We’ve got to teach them how to behave." But
when Benson protested that there would be no peace unless Americans
learned to get along with the Soviet Union, Truman admitted: “That is
right." On May 13, Joseph E. Davies found the President “much dis­
turbed" over the Russian problem. Molotov had apparently gone to San
Francisco “to make trouble," Truman charged, and the newspapers—
“these damn sheets"—were making it worse. But when Davies at­
tributed much of the tension at San Francisco to the anti-Soviet bias of
55 American Institute of Public Opinion poll of May 15, 1945, cited in Cantnl and
Strunk, eds., Public Opinion, pp. 370—71; Department of State, “Fortnightly Survey of
American Opinion,“ No. 28, June 9, 1945; Almond, The American People and For­
eign Policy, p. 96. For the February, 1945, survey, see Grew to Roosevelt, February
24, 1945, Roosevelt MSS, PSF 29: “State Department.“
Victory and Transition 231

American officials, Truman agreed that such hostility existed and prom­
ised to change the situation. Davies left a memorandum with the Presi­
dent which argued that “it is . . . wrong to assume that ‘tough' lan­
guage is the only language they [the Russians] can understand." 56
Truman at this time thought highly enough of Davies to entrust him
later that month with a delicate mission to London to explain American
policy to Winston Churchill, whose anti-Russian fulminations had be­
come increasingly strident in recent weeks. Davies told the British Prime
Minister that the President was “gravely concerned” over growing differ­
ences with the Soviet Union, many of which had sprung, Truman be­
lieved, from conflicting interpretations of the Yalta agreements:
The President's position was that every agreement made by President
Roosevelt would be scrupulously supported by him. If there were differences
of opinion as to what these agreements were, he wanted them cleared up. If
new decisions were required for continued unity, he wanted clear under­
standings as to the terms. The U.S. would then fulfill these obligations, and
he would confidently expect the same from associated governments.

Like Roosevelt, Truman believed that only continued Big Three unity
could guarantee lasting peace. The President later acknowledged that
Davies had represented his position with “accuracy” and “exceptional
skill.” 57
By now Truman had accepted a proposal from Churchill for another
Big Three meeting, but insisted that he could not leave the United
States until July because of pressing domestic problems.58 Ambassador
56 MacDougali, Gideon’s Army, I, 23; Davies memorandum of conversation with
Truman, May 13, 1945, Davies MSS, Box 16; Davies to Truman, May 12, 1945, ibid.
57 Davies report to Truman on conversations with Churchill, June 12, 1945, FR:
Potsdam, I, 64—65; Truman, Year o f Decisions, p. 261. Some confusion did arise over
the plans for the Big Three meeting. Davies gave Churchill the impression that Tru­
man wanted to meet Stalin first at a separate location, in order to avoid the impression
of “ganging up” on the Russians. Churchill took violent exception to this. Truman
later argued that he had only intended to suggest individual personal contacts at the
proposed Big Three meeting, not a separate bilateral conference. On this matter, see
ibid., pp. 260—62; Churchill, Triumph and Tragedy, pp. 492—96; and Feis, Between
War and Peace, pp. 124—27. Davies also took it upon himself to give the Prime Min­
ister a lengthy exposition of his own personal views, including the suggestion that
Churchill might now regret his decision to support Stalin instead of Hitler during the
war. (FR: Potsdam, I, 73.)
58 For messages regarding the timing of the Big Three conference, see FR: Potsdam,
1, 3—20. According to Davies, Truman told him on May 21 that he had delayed the
232 Victory and Transition

Harriman objected to the delay, arguing that Soviet-American relations

constituted “the number one problem affecting the future of the world“
and that the two countries “were getting farther and farther apart.“ The
President held to his timetable, however, prompting Harriman to sug­
gest sending Harry Hopkins to Moscow at once to try to settle outstand­
ing difficulties. Truman had previously considered this possibility, and
after checking with Hopkins informed Stalin on May 19 that Roosevelt’s
former confidant would accompany Harriman back to the Soviet
Union.*59
By sending Hopkins to Moscow, Truman clearly demonstrated his de­
sire to continue Roosevelt’s Russian policy. “I want peace and I am will­
ing to work hard for it,” the President wrote in the diary which he spo­
radically kept during his early days in the White House; “to have a
reasonably lasting peace, the three great powers must be able to trust
each other.” On the next day, Truman told Stettinius that he was confi­
dent that “Harry would be able to straighten things out with Stalin. He
stated that. . . . the Hopkins Mission was going to unravel a great
many things and that by the time he met with the Big Three . . . most
of our troubles would be out of the way.” Truman instructed Hopkins to
"make it clear to Uncle Joe Stalin that I knew what I wanted—and
that I intended to get— peace for the world for at least 90 years.” The
United States, Hopkins was to say, had no territorial ambitions or ulte­
rior motives in Eastern Europe or anywhere else in the world, but when
it made commitments it planned to keep them, and expected othei na­
tions to do the same. Truman left Hopkins free, he later wrote, “to use
diplomatic language or a baseball bat if he thought that was the proper
Big Three meeting until after the first test of the atomic bomb, scheduled for mid-
July. The President made a similar statement to Stimson on June 6. (Davies Diary,
May 21, 1945, Davies MSS, Box 17; Stimson memorandum of conversation with Tru­
man, June 6, 1945, Stimson MSS, Box 421.) But Truman explained to other advisers
who knew about the bomb that he was postponing the meeting until he could finish
work on the budget. (FR: Potsdam, I, 11, 13.) The question of whether the bomb in­
fluenced Truman's timing thus remains inconclusive. For two conflicting interpreta­
tions on this matter, see Alperovitz, Atomic Diplomacy, chapter 3; and Kolko, Politics
o f War, pp. 421-22.
59 Grew memorandum, Truman-Harriman conversation, May 15, 1945, FR: Pots­
dam, I, 13—14; Truman to Stalin, May 19, 1945, ibid,, pp. 21—22. For the origins of
the Hopkins mission, see Sherwood, Roosevelt and Hopkins, pp. 885—87; and Tru­
man, Year o f Decisions, pp. 257—58.
Victory and Transition 233

approach/* But the President was well aware of Hopkins* sympathetic

attitude toward the Russians, and by choosing him to undertake this
mission ensured that the approach would be conciliatory.60
At their first meeting on May 26, Hopkins frankly told Stalin that
within the past six weeks a serious deterioration in American opinion of
Russia had occurred. Disaffection had developed not among the small
minority who had always been hostile to the USSR but among “the very
people who had supported to the hilt Roosevelt's policy of cooperation
with the Soviet Union.** This situation was very dangerous because it
placed limitations on Truman's freedom of action: “Without the support
of public opinion and particularly of the supporters of President Roose­
velt it would be very difficult for President Truman to carry forward
President Roosevelt’s policy.** Hopkins went on to explain the reasons
for this feeling of alarm in the United States. He told Stalin that the
“cardinal basis** of Roosevelt's foreign policy had been the assumption
that both the United States and the Soviet Union had worldwide inter­
ests. At Yalta the two countries had come close to settling the outstand­
ing issues between them. But because of the failure to carry out the
Yalta agreement on Poland, public opinion in the United States had be­
come upset. A series of events, unimportant in themselves, had left
Americans bewildered at the Big Three's inability to agree.
At this point Stalin interrupted Hopkins to say that the Soviet Union
wanted to have a friendly Poland, but that the British wanted to revive
the old cordon sanitaire. Hopkins replied emphatically that the United
States had no such intention; that Americans “would desire a Poland
friendly to the Soviet Union and in fact desired to see friendly countries
all along the Soviet borders.** Stalin commented that if this was so, then
it would be easy to reach an agreement on Poland.61
Hopkins explained that Poland was a symbol of American ability to
work with the Soviet Union. The United States had no special interests
in Poland and would recognize any government which the Polish people
would accept and which was friendly to the Soviet Union. W hat upset
60 Truman Diary, May 22, 1945, printed in Hillman, Mr. President, p. 116; Stettin-
ius calendar notes, May 23, 1945, Stettinius Papers, Box 245; Truman, Year o f Deci­
sions, p. 258.
61 Bohlen notes, Hopkins-Stalin meeting of May 26, 1945, quoted in Sherwood,
Roosevelt and Hopkins, pp. 889—90.
234 Victory and Transition

the people and the government of the United States was the unilateral
action which the Russians and the Lublin Poles had taken in Poland.
Something would have to be done to calm this concern. If the American
people were to abandon isolationism, “our people must believe that they
are joining their power with that of the Soviet Union and Great Britain
in the promotion of international peace and the well being of human­
ity”
Stalin replied with a frank exposition of the Russian view on Poland.
He told Hopkins that twice within the last twenty-five years the Ger­
mans had invaded Russia through Poland. The Poles had either been too
weak to resist or had let the Germans through because they hated the
Russians so much. Polish weakness and hostility had hurt Russia in the
past; Russia had a vital interest in seeing to it that Poland was strong
and friendly in the future. Stalin admitted taking unilateral actions in
Poland, but said that this had been done for military reasons, not from
any desire to exclude the Soviet Union’s allies from participation in post­
war Polish affairs. The Russian leader then proposed a practical solution
of the problem. The present Warsaw government would form the basis
of the future Polish Provisional Government of National Unity, but rep­
resentatives from other Polish groups who were friendly to both the Al­
lies and the Russians could have four or five out of the eighteen or
twenty ministries in the government.62
Hopkins relayed this information to Washington, and by June 6 was
able to tell Stalin that Truman had agreed. The President and his ad­
visers did not regard this solution of the Polish problem as final. Am­
bassador Harriman warned Truman on the 8th:
I am afraid Stalin does not and never will fully understand our interest in a
free Poland as a matter of principle. He is a realist in all of his actions, and
it is hard for him to appreciate our faith in abstract principles. It is difficult
for him to understand why we should want to interfere with Soviet policy in
a country like Poland, which he considers so important to Russia's security,
unless we have some ulterior motive.

But Truman’s willingness to accept Stalin’s offer marked a realization on

his part of something Roosevelt had found out earlier: given the realities
62 Bohlen notes, Hopkins-Stalin meeting of May 27, 1945, quoted ibid,, pp.
899-901.
Victory and Transition 235

of the situation in Eastern Europe, the best the United States could hope
for was that world opinion would force the Soviet-dominated Polish pro­
visional government to hold free elections. In time, Truman even came
to sound like Roosevelt when he discussed Poland. He told Dr. T. V.
Soong later in June that he wanted the Polish question settled “in such a
manner as to insure tranquility and stability.“ At Potsdam the following
month, the President reminded Stalin: “There are six million Poles in
the United States. A free election in Poland reported to the United
States by a free press would make it easier to deal with these . . . peo­
ple.“ But the Hopkins-Stalin agreement in no way altered the balance of
power in Poland. The most that could be said for the new government
in Warsaw, Time observed, “was that in forming it Russia had paid lip
service to the Yalta pledges, and given the U.S. and Britain a chance to
save face.“ 63
If Stalin drove a hard bargain on Poland, however, he proved to be
most accommodating on the other matters which Hopkins and Harri-
man took up with him. Russia would enter the war against Japan as
promised, Stalin assured the Americans, and would scrupulously observe
the independence of China. The Allied Control Council for Germany
would begin work as quickly as possible, with Marshal Zhukov serving
as the Soviet representative. The Russian leader indicated that he would
be glad to meet Truman and Churchill in the vicinity of Berlin in mid-
July. Near the end of Hopkins’ stay in Moscow, Stalin cooperatively
agreed to the American position on voting in the United Nations Secu­
rity Council, thus breaking a deadlock which had threatened to wreck
the work of the San Francisco Conference. “There has been a very pleas­
ant yielding on the part of the Russians to some of the things in which
we are interested,” Truman told a press conference on June 13. “I think
if we keep our heads and be patient, we will arrive at a conclusion; be-
63Harriman to Truman, June 8, 1945, FR: Potsdam, I, 61; Grew memorandum of
Truman-Soong conversation, June 14, 1945, FR: 1945, VII, 902; minutes, 5th plenary
meeting, Potsdam, July 21, 1945, FR: Potsdam, II, 206; Time, XLVI (July 16, 1945),
14. See also Truman, Year o f Decisions, pp. 263—64; McNeill, America, Britain, and
Russia, p. 591; and Byrnes, Speaking Frankly, p. 65. Admiral Leahy later noted: “The
chief concern of Truman, as had been the case with Roosevelt, was to see that the
Poles got a democratic government representing the majority of the inhabitants. Add­
ing to the interest of America was the large and vocal group of Polish Americans who
were important politically.” (/ Was There, p. 467.)
236 Victory and Transition

cause the Russians are just as anxious to get along with us as we are
with them. And I think they have showed it very conclusively in these
last negotiations.” 64

VI
The Hopkins-Stalin compromise settled the controversy over Poland for
the time being, leaving Germany as the major issue facing the Big
Three when they met at Potsdam in July.65 United States plans for the
occupation of Germany had been in a state of flux at the time of Roose­
velt’s death, with the State Department pushing a reparations program
which looked toward revival of the German economy, while the Army
prepared to implement JCS 1067, which still incorporated Morgenthaus
punitive scheme of institutionalized chaos. But developments between
April and July forced American officials to resolve the ambiguity of
their German policy once and for all in favor of rehabilitation rather
than repression.
The inadequacies of JCS 1067 became painfully apparent once mili­
tary government authorities began trying to put it into effect. Con­
fronted with the prospect of starving Germans, General Lucius D. Clay,
military governor for the United States zone, quickly saw the illogic of
prohibiting a resumption of industrial activity. Lewis Douglas, Clay’s fi­
nancial adviser, complained in amazement: “This thing was assembled by
economic idiots! It makes no sense to forbid the most skilled workers in
Europe from producing as much as they can for a continent which is
desperately short of everything!” Unable to get Washington to under­
take still another revision of JCS 1067, Douglas resigned in protest. Clay
remained, taking advantage of loopholes in the directive to mitigate its
more punitive provisions.66
Furtherm ore, W ashington officials were becoming convinced th a t eco­
nomic chaos, w hether in Germ any or in Europe as a whole, could only
benefit the Soviet Union. In a conversation w ith Secretary o f W ar Stim-
64 Truman press conference of June 13, 1945, Truman Public Papers, 1945, p. 123.
See also Sherwood, Roosevelt and Hopkins, pp. 891, 901—3, 907—8, 910—12.
65 McNeill, America, Britain, and Russia, pp. 590—91.
66 Clay, Decision in Germany, pp. 16—19; Murphy, Diplomat among Warriors, p.
251.
Victory and Transition 237

son on May 13, former President Herbert Hoover advocated a return to

his World W ar I tactic of fighting communism by shipping food to
starving Europeans. Three days later Stimson warned Truman of the im­
portance of keeping Western Europe “from being driven to revolution or
Communism by famine.” But the Secretary of War pointed out that the
rehabilitation of liberated Europe could not be separated from the prob­
lem of Germany, a subject on which there had already been too much
“emotional thinking.” Proposals such as Morgenthau’s for keeping the
Germans hungry would be a “grave mistake”:
Punish her war criminals in full measure. Deprive her permanendy of her
weapons, her General Staff, and perhaps her entire army. Guard her govern­
mental action until the Nazi educated generation has passed from the stage
—admittedly a long job. But do not deprive her of the means of building
up ultimately a contented Germany interested in following non-militaristic
methods of civilization. . . . It is to the interest of the whole world that they
[the Germans] should not be driven by stress of hardship into a non-demo-
cratic and necessarily predatory habit of life.

Navy Secretary Forrestal had come to similar conclusions. Germany

had to be denied the capacity to make war, he wrote on May 14, but “to
ignore the existence of 75 or 80 millions of vigorous and industrious
people or to assume that they will not join with Russia if no other outlet
is afforded them I think is closing our eyes to reality.” 67
Truman needed no convincing. Although he had signed the revised
version of JCS 1067, knowing that occupation authorities needed some
kind of directive, the new President made it clear that he would not op­
pose modification of the document’s harsher provisions. Truman relied
more heavily on State Department advice than Roosevelt had, while at
the same time the War Department, under the influence of Stimson and
Clay, was beginning to back away from Morgenthau’s ideas. Although
the new Chief Executive treated the Treasury Secretary courteously, dif-
67 Stimson memorandum of conversation with Hoover, May 13, 1945, Stimson
MSS, Box 421; Stimson to Truman, May 16, 1945, ibid.; Forrestal to Senator Homer
Ferguson, May 14, 1945, Millis, ed.. The Forrestal Diaries, p. 57. See also Hoover to
Stimson, May 15, 1945, Stimson MSS, Box 421. The rigid ban which JCS 1067 im ­
posed on political parties in the American zone also caused concern in the State De­
partment and among occupation authorities for fear it would strengthen underground
activity by German communists. See FR: 1945, III, 944, 949, 951; FR: Potsdam, I,
438, 472-73, 489, II, 774-75.
238 Victory and Transition

ferences between them soon became obvious. Truman asked Morgenthau

to delay publication of his plan for Germany until after the Potsdam
Conference: “I have got to see Stalin and Churchill, and when I do I
wa n t . . . all the cards in my hand, and the plan on Germany is one of
them. I don’t want to play my hand before I see them.” In a conversa­
tion with State Department officials on May 10, the President said that
he “entirely disagreed” with Morgenthau’s recommendation that syn­
thetic oil plants in Germany be destroyed. Later that month, Truman re­
buked the Treasury Secretary for questioning the need to go through
elaborate legal procedures in dealing with Nazi war criminals: “Even
the Russians want to give them a trial.” Early in July, just before leav­
ing for Potsdam, the President finally asked for Morgenthau’s resigna­
tion. In retrospect, Truman acknowledged that he had always opposed
the Morgenthau Plan. It would have been “an act of revenge,” he
argued, “and too many peace treaties had been based on that spirit.” 68
But the Administration’s decision in favor of rehabilitation made it all
the more important to work out an agreement with the Soviet Union on
reparations. If the Russians were given free rein to take what they
wanted, they would strip the industrialized areas of western Germany,
producing the economic chaos which Washington wanted to avoid. But
if the Russians did not obtain a satisfactory reparations settlement, they
might deny badly needed food shipments from their zone to the West,
making it necessary for the British and Americans to launch a costly im­
port program to ward off starvation. Hence, Washington officials sought
an arrangement whereby they could control the flow of reparations to
the Soviet Union without provoking reprisals. As Stimson told Truman:
“We must find some way of persuading Russia to play ball.” 69
On July 3,1945, three days before his departure for Potsdam, Truman
68 Blum, Morgenthau Diaries: Years o f War, pp. 451—52, 459—68; Grew memoran­
dum of conversation with Truman, May 10, 1945, FR: 1945, III, 509; Truman, Year
o f Decisions, pp. 235—36. Truman says that he asked for Morgenthau’s resignation
after the Treasury Secretary demanded to be taken to Potsdam. Morgenthau s diary ac­
count, however, indicates that he only expressed regret that no Treasury representa­
tives would be present at the Big Three conference and that he himself proposed his
resignation. (Truman, Year o f Decisions, p. 327; Blum, Morgenthau Diaries: Years o f
War, pp. 465-66.)
69 Potsdam briefing book paper, “Policy Toward Germany/’ FR: Potsdam, I,
440—41; Stimson to Truman, May 16, 1945, Stimson MSS, Box 421.
Victory and Transition 239

named James F. Byrnes to replace Stettinius as secretary of state. Byrnes

had attended the Yalta Conference at Roosevelt’s request, but otherwise
had little diplomatic experience. He did have an impressive domestic
record, however, having served in both houses of Congress, on the Su­
preme Court, and as director of the Office of War Mobilization and Re­
conversion. The new Secretary of State looked forward to applying the
negotiating techniques he had found useful in these jobs to the
problems of foreign affairs. Truman and Byrnes had one overriding
objective at Potsdam: they wanted to clear up remaining wartime prob­
lems so that United States military and economic responsibilities in Eu­
rope could be terminated as quickly as possible. Both men were able
practitioners of the art of politics, acutely sensitive to the American pub­
lic’s desire for a return to normalcy at home and abroad. Both tended to
look upon the Russians as fellow politicians, with whom a deal could be
arranged.70
Soviet actions prior to Potsdam made it clear that Moscow would
drive a hard bargain. The Russians had already systematically stripped
the areas they occupied of heavy industry, railroad rolling stock, agricul­
tural implements, and even furnishings from houses, but argued that
these goods came under the category of “war booty” rather than repara­
tions. Simultaneously, the Soviet Union had unilaterally turned over a
large section of its occupation zone to the Poles, causing an exodus into
the remainder of Germany of several million displaced Germans while
reducing the area from which food for the Anglo-American zones could
be made available. The Allies had agreed at Yalta that Poland should
receive “substantial accessions of territory” from Germany to compensate
for land taken by the Soviet Union, but London and Washington consid­
ered the boundary which the Russians assigned to the Poles— the line
of the Oder and Western Neisse rivers— as running much too far to
the west.71
Meanwhile the Reparations Commission, meeting in Moscow, had
made no progress toward resolving that complex issue. The Russians
70 McNeill, America, Britain, and Russia, pp. 611—12, 622; Daniels, Man o f Inde­
pendence, pp. 285—86; Welles, Seven Decisions That Shaped History, pp. 207—9.
71 Potsdam briefing book paper, “Suggested United States Policy Regarding Poland,”
June 29, 1945, FR: Potsdam, I, 743—47. For Russian war booty removals, see Kennan
to Stettinius, April 27 and May 3, 1945, FR: 1945, III, 1200, 1203—5.
240 Victory and Transition

continued to accord first priority to the removal of a fixed amount of

goods and services from Germany— $20 billion, the figure accepted
“as a basis for discussion” at Yalta, of which half would go the Soviet
Union— regardless of what this would do to the German standard of
living. The Americans, fearing economic collapse, continued to insist on
the “first charge” principle, which would allow the extraction of repara­
tions only after imports essential to maintain the German economy had
been paid for. “It was clear to us,” General Clay later wrote, “that for
many months to come German production would not suffice to keep the
German people alive, and that the use of any part of it for reparations
would mean that once again the United States would be not only sup­
porting Germany but also paying the bill for reparations.” 72
Determined not to repeat the post-World War I experience, Truman
and Byrnes took a firm stand on reparations throughout the conference.
“There was one pitfall I intended to avoid,” Truman later recalled; “we
did not intend to pay, under any circumstances, the reparations bill for
Europe.” The Secretary of State repeatedly stressed that “there will be no
reparations until imports in the American zone are paid for. There can
be no discussion of this matter.” Convinced that the Russian position on
war booty and the Polish-German border precluded any over-all ar­
rangement on reparations which the Americans could accept, Byrnes
proposed that each occupying power simply take what it wanted from
its own zone. Since the Anglo-American zones contained the bulk of
German heavy industry, Byrnes offered to give the Russians a certain
percentage of what could be spared from these areas, and to exchange a
further amount in return for food shipments from the Soviet zone.73
The Russians, still hoping for commitment to a fixed sum, did not like
this proposal. A percentage of an undetermined amount, Molotov
pointed out, meant very little. To compensate for war booty removals
and the transfer of part of eastern Germany to Poland, the Soviet for­
eign minister offered to reduce the total reparations bill which the Rus­
sians sought, but Byrnes and Truman refused. They did offer to accept
the Oder—Western Neisse line, pending final determination by the
peace conference, if Moscow would agree to the American position on
72 Clay, Decision in Germany, p. 38. Discussions in the Reparations Commission are
covered in FR: Potsdam, I, $10—54.
73 Truman, Year o f Decisions, p. 323; minutes, 6th foreign ministers’ meeting, July
23, 1945, FR: Potsdam, II, 279-80. See also ibid., pp. 274-75, 295-98, 450-52,
471-76.
Victory and Transition 241

reparations. Faced with the alternative of getting no reparations from

the Western zones at all, the Russians reluctantly went along with this
bargain. The final protocol provided that reparations claims of each vic­
tor would be met by removals from the territory each occupied, but that
in addition the Russians would receive from the Anglo-American zones
10 percent “of such industrial capital equipment as is unnecessary for the
German peace economy.” The Soviet Union would get another 15 per­
cent of such material from the West in exchange for an equivalent value
of food, coal, or other commodities from the Russian zone.74
Once the United States had decided to rehabilitate Germany, it could
not agree to Moscow's demand for a guaranteed amount of reparations
without placing unacceptable burdens on the American taxpayer. The
compromise Byrnes arranged at Potsdam allowed the Soviet Union ship­
ments of industrial equipment from the Western zones, but placed Brit­
ish and American officials in a position to control the flow of these
goods through the “first charge” principle. At the same time, it obligated
the Russians to help feed the American and British zones by sending
food from the East. This arrangement promoted American economic in­
terests but still left room for continued cooperation with the Soviet
Union. By increasing the authority of the zonal commanders at the ex­
pense of the Allied Control Council, however, the Potsdam agreement
undermined the principle of a unified Germany for which proponents of
rehabilitation had long fought. Molotov realized this at once. Would not
Byrnes's proposal, he asked, “mean that each country would have a free
hand in their own zones and would act entirely independent of the
others?” 75 But the President and his secretary of state, preoccupied with
their immediate goal of minimizing American responsibilities in Europe,
failed to see or chose to ignore the long-range implications of their own
policy.
On other issues, Potsdam produced mixed results. The Russians agreed
readiiy enough to the establishment of a Council of Foreign Ministers
which would begin work on peace treaties with former Axis satellites.
Efforts by the Americans to secure a stronger Soviet commitment to the
Yalta Declaration on Liberated Europe failed, however, as the Russians
insisted on equating the situation in Eastern Europe with that in Italy
74 PR: Potsdam, II, 296-97, 473, 480, 512-14, 1485-86.
75 Bohlen minutes, Byrnes-Molotov conversation, July 27, 1945, FR: Potsdam, II,
450.
242 Victory and Transition

and Greece. Stalin did renew his promise to enter the war against Japan,
and cooperatively provided the Americans with news of peace feelers
from Tokyo. A series of other matters, including the disposition of Ital­
ian colonies, revision of the Montreux Convention on the Black Sea
straits, troop withdrawals from Iran, and an American proposal for the
internationalization of inland waterways, were referred to the new
Council of Foreign Ministers for future consideration.76
American officials left Potsdam with ambivalent feelings regarding
the possibilities of future cooperation with the Soviet Union. Admiral
Leahy noted that the British and Americans had been forced to accept
many unilateral actions taken by the Russians since Yalta, but rejoiced
that Truman had “stood up to Stalin in a manner calculated to warm
the heart of every patriotic American“ by refusing to be “bulldozed into
any reparations agreement that would repeat the history of World War
I.” Byrnes believed that the concessions that had been made reflected the
realities of the situation in Europe, and that his “horsetrade” on repara­
tions and the Polish boundary question had left the way open for further
negotiations at the foreign ministers* level. General Clay anticipated no
serious difficulties in working with the Russians in Germany: ‘They
know what they want and it is always easy to do business with those
who do know their own desires.” 77
But the police-state atmosphere of the Soviet zone, together with
painfully obvious evidence of looting, repelled the Americans. Secretary
of W ar Stimson described the Russian attitude on war booty as “rather
oriental/* while Reparations Commissioner Pauley termed it “organized
vandalism.** Harriman pictured Russia as “a vacuum into which all mov­
able goods would be sucked,** and commented that “H itlers greatest
crime was that his actions had resulted in opening the gates of Eastern
Europe to Asia.** Joseph E. Davies, always a sensitive barometer of anti-
Russian sentiment, noted that “the hostility to Russia is bitter and sur­
prisingly open— considering that we are here to compose and secure
peace*':
There is constant repetition of the whispered suggestions of how ruthless the
Russian Army had been in looting and shipping back vast quantities of ev-
76 Potsdam protocol, August 1, 1945, FR: Potsdam, II, 1478—98.
77 Leahy, I Was There, pp. 497—98; George Cutty, James F. Byrnes, p. 125; Clay
to Baruch, August 8, 1945, Baruch MSS, “Selected Correspondence.”
Victory and Transition 243

erything from cattle to plumbing fixtures. . . . The atmosphere is poisoned

with it. The French are carrying everything, including the kitchen stove, out
of their territory. Our own soldiers and even some members of this delega­
tion are ‘liberating” things from this area. But the criticisms are leveled only
against the Soviets.
Davies worried that the President was “surrounded by forces actively
hostile to the Russians, even to the point of destroying Big Three
unity.” 78
But Truman took a more balanced view than many of his advisers.
“Joe,” he explained to Davies, “I am trying my best to save peace and to
follow out Roosevelt’s plans. . . . Jim Byrnes knows that, too, and is
doing all he possibly can.” The President found the tenacious bargaining
tactics of the Russians frustrating— “on a number of occasions I felt
like blowing the roof off the palace”— but thought he understood and
could deal with the Soviet dictator: “Stalin is as near like Tom Pender-
gast as any man I know,” the former senator from Missouri later com­
mented. The Russians were negotiating from weakness rather than
strength, Truman believed, because “a dictatorship is the hardest thing
in God’s world to hold together.” While Stalin might want to dominate
the world, he would likely find himself more concerned in future years
with the problem of remaining in power. Moreover, Russian aggressive­
ness was based in part upon expectations of a postwar depression in the
United States, a development which Truman hoped to avoid. According
to one close observer, Truman after Potsdam approached the problem of
dealing with Russia in the manner of a typical Middle American “who
believed without contradiction in loving his neighbor and steadily
watching him at the same time.” Stalin was “an S.O.B.,” the President
told his startled companions on the voyage home, but then he added af­
fably: “I guess he thinks I’m one too.” 79
78 Stimson to Truman, July 22, 1945, FR: Potsdam, II, 808—9; Pauley to Byrnes,
July 27, 1945, ibid., p. 889; Forrestal Diary, July 29, 1945, Millis, ed., The Forrestal
Diaries, pp. 79—80; Davies Diary, July 15, 16, 19, 21, 1945, Davies MSS, Box 18.
79 Davies Diary, July 16, 1945, Davies MSS, Box 18; Truman, Year o f Decisions,
pp. 369, 411—12; Murphy, Diplomat among Warriors, pp. 278—79; Forrestal Diary,
July 28, 1945, Millis, ed., The Forrestal Diaries, p. 78; Daniels, Man o f Independ­
ence, pp. 276, 278—79, 285—86; Fletcher Knebel and Charles W . Bailey II, No High
Ground, pp. 1—2. Daniels believes that Truman reached his conclusions about the
weaknesses of dictatorships from having watched the operations of the Pendergast ma­
chine in Kansas City. (Man o f Independence, p. 285.)
 The Impotence of Omnipotence:
American Diplomacy, the Atomic Bomb,
and the Postwar W orld

Knowledge that the United States had successfully tested the first atomic
bomb on July 16, 1945, probably made the difficulties of dealing with
the Russians at Potsdam seem less than overwhelming to the President.
News of the secret explosion in the New Mexico desert had greatly
cheered Truman and his advisers, contributing to their firm stand on
German reparations and to their declining interest in securing Russian
military assistance against Japan. American officials had anxiously de­
bated whether to tell Stalin about the bomb before its use. Their conclu­
sion, reported to the President by Secretary of War Stimson, had bœn to
inform the Russians but to give them as little additional information as
possible. Truman carried out this recommendation on July 24, casually
telling the Soviet leader that the United States had developed a powerful
new weapon. The President did not go into details, and Stalin simply ex­
pressed the hope that the device would be used on the Japanese.1
1 Stimson Diary, July 3, 1945, Stimson MSS; minutes, meeting of the Combined
Policy Committee, July 4, 1945, FR: 1945, II, 13; Truman, Year o f Decisions, p. 416;
Byrnes, Speaking Frankly, p. 263; Churchill, Triumph and Tragedy, pp. 572—73. For
the effect news of the successful test had on American and British negotiators at Pots-
The Impotence o f Omnipotence 245

The possibility of employing the bomb to shorten the war had long
been taken for granted by American and British political leaders. Roose­
velt and Churchill had agreed as early as September, 1944, that if the
weapon was ready in time it might, “after mature considerations/* be put
to use against the Japanese. Actually, F.D.R.*s position was less equivo­
cal than the tone of this document indicates. Stimson later wrote that
“at no time, from 1941 to 1945, did I ever hear it suggested by the Pres­
ident, or by any other responsible member of the government, that
atomic energy should not be used in the war.” Admiral Leahy thought
that “FDR would have used it in a minute to prove that he had not
wasted two billion dollars.** Churchill concurred: “There was unani­
mous, automatic, unquestioned agreement around our table; nor did I
ever hear the slightest suggestion that we should do otherwise.** Presi­
dent Truman's attitude was equally clear: “I regarded the bomb as a
military weapon and never had any doubt that it should be used.**
Throughout the war Anglo-American military strategy had been to seek
victory as quickly as possible through technology, not manpower. The
decision to drop the bomb marked the logical culmination of that ef­
fort.*2
But the bomb had more than purely military implications. American
possession of this revolutionary new weapon drastically altered the post­
war balance of power, making it at least technically feasible for the
United States to impose its will upon the rest of the world. “God Al­
mighty in His infinite wisdom [has] dropped the atomic bomb in our
lap,** Senator Edwin C. Johnson of Colorado proclaimed in November,
1945; now for the first time the United States, “with vision and guts and
plenty of atomic bombs,. . . [could] compel mankind to adopt the pol­
icy of lasting peace . . . or be burned to a crisp.** No responsible official
in the Truman Administration wanted to go that far, but the President
and his advisers did expea that the American nuclear monopoly would
dam, see the Stimson Diary, July 16—19, 21—22, 24, 30, 1945, Stimson MSS; and the
Davies Diary, July 28, 1945, Davies MSS, Box 19.
2 Roosevelt-Churchill aide-memoire, September 19, 1944, printed in Gowing, Brit­
ain and Atomic Energy, p. 447; Henry L. Stimson, “The Decision to Use the Atomic
Bomb,” Harper's, CXCIV (February, 1947), 98; Leahy interview with Jonathan Dan­
iels, quoted in Daniels, Man o f Independence, p. 281; Churchill, Triumph and Trag­
edy, p. 546; Truman, Year o f Decisions, p. 419. See also W alter Smith Schoenberger,
Decision o f Destiny, pp. 44—47. For Anglo-American military strategy, see chapter 3.
246 The Impotence o f Omnipotence

improve the West’s bargaining position with the Soviet Union. In par­
ticular, they anticipated that in return for agreeing to turn control of the
bomb over to an international agency, they might secure political con­
cessions from the Russians in Eastern Europe and elsewhere.3
These hopes were frustrated, however, for “atomic diplomacy” proved
to be a surprisingly ineffective means of securing American objectives.
The new weapon must have impressed Kremlin leaders— they appar­
ently ordered a quick acceleration of their own bomb development
program— but they carefully avoided any outward signs of concern.4
The Soviet position on Eastern Europe became increasingly rigid after
August, 1945, while Russian diplomats showed only the most casual in­
terest in American plans to place control of atomic weapons in the
hands of the United Nations. Washington officials had no intention of
actually using the bomb to compel Moscow’s cooperation, and they had
devised no clear strategy for employing the weapon’s potential power as
a bargaining instrument on specific issues. Moreover, with the end of the
war Congress began to reassert its authority over the conduct of foreign
affairs, severely restricting the Administration’s freedom of action not
only in the field of international control but also in more conventional
areas of military and economic policy. As a result, American leaders
found it just as difficult, if not more so, to shape external developments
to their liking after the bombs fell on Hiroshima and Nagasaki than
they had before these awesome events had taken place.
3 Congressional Record, November 28, 1945, pp. 11085—86; Truman, Year o f Deci­
sions, p. 87; Stimson memorandum of conversation with Truman, June 6, 1945, Stim-
son MSS, Box 421; Davies Diary, July 28—29, 1945, Davies MSS, Box 19. See also
Daniels, Man o f Independence, p. 266; and Herbert Feis, The Atomic Bomb and the
End o f World War II, pp. 194—95. Gar Alperovitz has argued that American officials
did not regard use of the bomb as necessary to bring about Japan’s surrender, but
dropped it because “a combat demonstration was needed to convince the Russians to
accept the American plan for a stable peace.” (Atomic Diplomacy, p. 240.) Alperovitz
fails to show conclusively that policy-makers at the time believed a Japanese suriender
to be imminent, however, nor does he consider the domestic criticisms Truman and
his advisers would have faced had they allowed the war to continue after the bomb
had become available. Moreover, Alperovitz’s account rests on the questionable as­
sumption that Truman had, upon coming into office, decided to reverse Roosevelt’s
policy of cooperation with the Soviet Union. (On this point, see chapter 7.) For an
effective critique of Alperovitz by a fellow revisionist, see Kolko, Politics o f War, pp.
421-22, 538-43.
4 On this point, see Ulam, Expansion and Coexistence, pp. 415—17.
The Im potence o f Omnipotence 247

The use of atomic energy for military purposes created special problems
for a nation which prided itself on reaching decisions democratically.
Public knowledge of the issues had always been regarded, accurately or
inaccurately, as a prerequisite for successful operation of the American
political system. But nuclear energy was a totally new field which only a
tiny minority of Americans could understand. The process of educating
the public would take time and, because of the forbiddingly technical
nature of the subject, could never be thorough. Government officials
could not wait for the people to become informed before deciding what
to do with the new weapon, yet constitutionally they could not exclude
them, or their representatives in Congress, from the policy-making proc­
ess. Many national leaders themselves did not fully understand the
problems they were now called upon to resolve. Hence, the formulation
of United States policy on the control of atomic energy took place in an
atmosphere of uncertainty, confusion, and ignorance.
The Truman Administration began considering the diplomatic impli­
cations of atomic energy shortly after Japan surrendered. Two alterna­
tives confronted Washington officials: the United States could retain its
monopoly over the bomb as long as possible, or it could turn over its
weapons to an international authority on the condition that future nu­
clear powers do the same. Since most experts agreed that the American
monopoly would be temporary,5 the first approach threatened to precip­
itate a dangerous armaments race with the Soviet Union. International
control, while it might prevent such a contest, involved risking Ameri­
can security by giving the nation's most powerful weapon to an un­
proven world body whose successful operation would depend in large
measure upon the attitude of Moscow. Congressional fears to the con­
trary notwithstanding, the Truman Administration never seriously con-
5 Scientists who had constructed the bomb pointed out that the weapon had evolved
from the application of widely known scientific laws, and that given time any major
industrial nation, including the Soviet Union, could emulate the American achieve­
ment. Alice Kimball Smith, A Peril and a Hope: The Scientists* Movement in Amer­
ica, 1945-47, provides a detailed discussion of the views of the atomic scientists. See
also James B. Conant, My Several Lives: Memoirs o f a Social Inventor, pp. 490—91.
248 The Impotence o f Omnipotence

templated giving the "secret” of the bomb directly to the Russians. But
by the end of 1945, it had chosen to work for international control, and
to seek the cooperation of the Soviet Union in that effort.
No man did more to set the stage for discussions within the govern­
ment on this subject than Henry L. Stimson, who, as secretary of war,
had supervised the Manhattan Project from the beginning. Despite his
advanced age and varied duties, Stimson avoided a narrowly military ap­
proach to the bomb and, during 1945, brooded deeply over how the new
weapon would affect American foreign policy. He told Truman that “de­
velopment of this weapon has placed a certain moral responsibility upon
us which we cannot shirk.” 6
In general, the Secretary of War accepted the scientists’ view that
atomic energy should be placed under international control. What
concerned him was the possibility that the totalitarian nature of the So­
viet regime might make it impossible for any outside agency to keep
Russian nuclear development under surveillance. Internal pressures
would eventually force a liberalization of Stalin’s dictatorship, Stimson
believed, and for a time he toyed with the idea of denying the Russians
information about the bomb until these changes had taken place.7 But
by September, 1945, he had decided that the United States should make
at least one direct and immediate effort to work out an international
control agreement with Moscow.
The Secretary of W ar had concluded, upon reflection, that “any de­
mand by us for an internal change in Russia as a condition of sharing in
the atomic weapon would be so resented that it would make the objec­
tive we have in view less probable.” If the United States did not ap­
proach the Russians with a plan for cooperation, “a secret armament
race of a rather desperate character” might break out. Stimson granted
that such an initiative might permit Soviet scientists to speed up their
own bomb construction program, but “if we fail to approach them now
6 Stimson to Truman, April 25, 1945, quoted in Stimson and Bundy, On Active
Service, p. 636.
7 As early as August, 1944, Stimson had referred cryptically to the necessity of
bringing Russia “into the fold of Christian civilization“ and to “possible use of SI
[the atomic bomb} to accomplish this.“ (Stimson notes for a conversation with Roo­
sevelt, dated August 23, 1944, Stimson MSS, Box 413.) See also Stimson to Truman,
“Reflections on the Basic Problems Which Confront Us,“ July 19, 1945, FR: Potsdam,
II, 1155-57.
The Im potence o f Omnipotence 249

and merely continue to negotiate with them, having this weapon rather
ostentatiously on our hip, their suspicions and their distrust of our pur­
poses and motives will increase/’ The Secretary of War recommended
that the United States, after consultation with its collaborators in the
bomb project, Great Britain and Canada, make a direct proposal to the
Soviet Union for a mutual halt in further bomb construction. Existing
weapons would be impounded, and an international agreement would be
obtained forbidding the use of atomic energy for military purposes.8
/

Stimson’s recommendations received a mixed reception inside the mil­

itary establishment. Robert P. Patterson, Stimson’s successor as secretary
of war, agreed that a direct approach to the Russians should be made.
Patterson felt that the United States could not count on retaining its
atomic monopoly for more than four years. All efforts should therefore
be directed toward preventing a nuclear armaments race, “even though
we now have and probably would continue for some time to have the
military advantage of a start in such a contest.” An expression of cau­
tion, however, came from Patterson’s counterpart in the Navy Depart­
ment, James V. Forrestal. Knowledge of the bomb construction process
was the property of the American people, Forrestal warned, and
until we are very sure that it is the sense of the people to make disposition
of this knowledge even to our Allies it seems to me that it is a step that
should be considered most carefully and taken only after complete study and
reflection so that the charge may never be levelled that it was done on im­
pulse.
Forrestal worried about whether the United States could trust the Rus­
sians, who were, he felt, “Oriental” in their thinking. Washington
should not rely on the honesty of the Kremlin leaders “until we have a
longer record of experience with them on the validity of engagements,
not from an expedient but from a moral point of view.” The Secretary of
the Navy favored having the United Nations appoint the United States
as “the trustee of all information regarding the atomic bomb.” In return
Washington would agree to use the weapon only according to directions
from the world organization.9
8 Stimson to Truman, September 11, 1945, FR: 1945, II, 40—44.
9 Stimson Diary, September 17, 1945, Stimson MSS; Patterson to Truman, Septem­
ber 26, 1945, FR: 1945, II, 54—55; Forrestal memorandum, September 21, 1945, For­
restal MSS, Box 100; Forrestal to Truman, October 1, 1945, ibid., Box 2. See also
Millis, ed.. The Forrestal Diaries, pp. 94—96; and Truman, Year o f Decisions, p. 526.
250 The Impotence o f Omnipotence

Like Forrestal, the Joint Chiefs of Staff expressed reservations. They

admitted that the basic principles by which the bomb had been built
were widely known, but noted that certain technical and manufacturing
processes were still secret. Release of this information could only acceler­
ate the armaments race. Until the major powers had agreed to settle
their differences, the United States should insist on retaining the secret
of these processes. Admiral William D. Leahy, who as Chief of Staff to
the President served as the principal liaison officer between the Penta­
gon and the White House, also advised against giving up any secrets re­
garding bomb manufacture, and called for a program to keep the United
States ahead of other nations which were trying to develop nuclear
weapons. Those who thought international control could prevent use of
the bomb were, in Leahy's view, simply uninformed.10
Stimson's proposals also evoked a mixed reaction from the men who
had developed the bomb. Reflecting the attitude of the atomic scientists,
Vannevar Bush, director of the Office of Scientific Research and Devel­
opment, pointed out that Stimson had not suggested giving up the secret
of the bomb: “that secret resides principally in the details of construction
of the bombs themselves, and in the manufacturing processes." All that
Stimson had recommended was to make known basic scientific knowl­
edge which could not be kept confidential. Russia might well benefit
more from this exchange of information than would the United States,
but at least Washington would know, based on whether or not Moscow
reciprocated, whether it could trust the Soviet Union.11
But Major General Leslie R. Groves, who had directed the Manhattan
Project for the War Department, strongly criticized the idea of exchang­
ing information with the Soviet Union. Groves viewed with skepticism
the atomic scientists' statements that the Russians could build a bomb in
four or five years, noting irritably that “the more they talk the shorter
the time seems to get." He felt that the United States should retain con­
trol of nuclear weapons “until all of the other nations of the world are
as anxious for peace as we are. And by 'anxious for peace,’ I mean in the
heart and not by speech or signature in a treaty which they do not in-
10 Joint Chiefs of Staff memorandum to Truman, date not given, quoted in Truman,
Year o f Decisions, pp. 527—28; Leahy Diary, October 17, 1945, Leahy MSS.
11 Bush to Truman, September 25, 1945, quoted in Truman, Year o f Decisions, p.
527, and summarized in Hewlett and Anderson, The New World, p. 421.
The Im potence o f Omnipotence 251

tend to honor.” Basically, Groves believed, the question was “whether

we want to work to the bone to support other nations in luxury while
they have long week-ends.” 12
Secretary of State James F. Byrnes also resisted any immediate move
toward international control because he hoped the American monopoly
over the bomb might make the Russians easier to deal with. As early as
April, 1945, Byrnes had predicted to Truman that with exclusive posses­
sion of atomic weapons the United States would be able to dictate its
own terms at the end of the war. In August, he had told J. Robert Op­
penheimer, head of the Los Alamos scientific laboratories, that an inter­
national agreement to control nuclear energy was not practical in the
near future. Instead Oppenheimer and his “gang” should proceed at full
speed to develop a hydrogen weapon. Byrnes thought that too much em­
phasis had been placed on the views of the scientists in discussing inter­
national control. Although he admired their achievement in developing
the bomb, he felt that they were no better informed than he on the
question of whether to share knowledge of it with other countries.
Inspection was the key: if the United States did not feel it could trust
other nations to open their facilities to inspection, then it should not re­
linquish information on methods for manufacturing the bomb. The Sec­
retary of State believed that the American monopoly would last, not
from four to five years, as the scientists estimated, but from seven to ten
years, and opposed doing anything to shorten its duration.13
Undersecretary of State Dean Acheson differed strongly with his chief
on this issue. In a memorandum to Truman written while Byrnes was
attending the London Foreign Ministers’ Conference in September,
1945, Acheson emphasized the scientists’ conclusion that “what we
know [about] the bomb is not a secret which we can keep to ourselves.”
12 New York Times, September 22 and November 8, 1945. In his memoirs. Groves
claimed that he “wholeheartedly concurred*’ with Stimson’s proposal of September 11,
1945. (Now It Can Be Told, p. 408.) Groves*s statements at the time do not support
this assertion, however.
13 Truman, Year o f Decisions, p. 87; Oppenheimer to Sdmson, August 17, 1945,
quoted in Hewlett and Anderson, The New World, p. 417; Stettinius calendar notes,
September 28, 1945, Stettinius MSS, Box 247; minutes of the meeting of the Secretar­
ies of State, W ar, and Navy, October 16, 1945, FR: 1945, II, 59—61; Forrestal Diary,
October 16, 1945, Millis, ed., The Forrestal Diaries, p. 102; Byrnes, Speaking Frankly,
pp. 261—65.
252 The Impotence o f Omnipotence

There could be little doubt that the Russians were working on nuclear
weapons:
The joint development of this discovery with the U.K. and Canada must ap­
pear to the Soviet Union to be unanswerable evidence of an Anglo-American
combination against them. . . . It is impossible that a government as power-
fill and power conscious as the Soviet Government could fail to react vigor­
ously to this situation. It must and will exert every energy to restore the loss
of power which this situation has produced.
Acheson regarded a nuclear armaments race with Russia as futile be­
cause there could be no defense against the bomb, and use of it might
destroy civilization. Under these circumstances, "the advantage of being
ahead in such a race is nothing compared with not having the race." If
the United States tried to proclaim itself sole trustee of the weapon, the
Russians would regard this as nothing less than outright exclusion. The
United States, Acheson concluded, would have to seek Soviet coopera­
tion in some form of international control.
Acheson recognized that his suggestion might create political difficul­
ties: “The public and Congress will be unprepared to accept a policy in­
volving substantial disclosures to the Soviet Union.“ The Truman
Administration could not wait, however, for public opinion to come
around. Open debate of this issue would only exacerbate relations with
Russia, making agreement more difficult to obtain, and in turn further
inflaming domestic opposition. The United States would have to find a
way to assure the Russians that they were not being kept from the secret
of atomic energy, while at the same time educating the American people
to the fact that this secret would not keep.14
Evidence of how fragile the United States nuclear monopoly was be­
came painfully clear on September 30, 1945, when Canadian Prime
Minister William L. Mackenzie King informed the President that Ot­
tawa officials had uncovered an elaborate Russian espionage network,
operating in both Canada and the United States, which had already
transmitted an undetermined amount of information about the atomic
bomb to the Soviet Union. Truman showed little surprise at this news,
and advised against doing anything “which might result in premature
action in any direction.“ Several weeks later the President explained to
14 Acheson to Truman, September 25, 1945, FR: 1945, II, 48—50. See also Ache­
son, Present at the Creation, pp. 123—25.
The Im potence o f Omnipotence 253

Stettinius that, although the Russians were clearly working on a bomb,

he was not as concerned as Mackenzie King. There was no “precious se­
cret” which the United States could withhold from other countries. The
American monopoly would last for from four to ten years. Washington
would have to use that time to work out an international agreement to
control atomic energy in the interests of world peace. Eventually Ameri­
can bombs would be turned over to the United Nations Security Coun­
cil; nuclear weapons would be outlawed, just as the use of poison gas
had been. The international control of atomic bombs was “the Number
One problem of the world at the present moment,” but Truman was
confident that “we would in time come to some intelligent solution.” 15
The Presidents October 3 message to Congress on both the domestic
and the international aspects of atomic energy represented a compromise
between the conflicting points of view his advisers had expressed. “The
essential theoretical knowledge upon which the discovery is based is
widely known,” he pointed out. Other nations would in time produce
atomic bombs. Under these circumstances, the only alternative to “a des­
perate armaments race which might well end in disaster” was an agree­
ment between all potential atomic powers to renounce the use of the
bomb for military purposes. Accordingly, Truman announced that he
would soon begin negotiations with Britain and Canada, and later with
other nations, in an effort to work out such an arrangement. He did not,
however, accept Stimson’s proposal for an immediate approach to the So­
viet Union.
The President's statement committed him to the principle of interna­
tional control, but without going into detail about how such a control
system might work. Anticipating congressional criticism, Truman point­
edly emphasized that the forthcoming discussions would in no way re­
veal the manufacturing processes which had produced the bomb. He also
promised to consult Congress fully as developments warranted, and to
submit to it any agreements requiring congressional approval. “I should
think he would be God damned glad to consult with Congress before ne­
gotiating agreements,” Senator Vandenberg later growled to a reporter.
15 J. W . Pickersgill and D. F. Forster, The Mackenzie King Record, 1945—1946,
pp. 40—41; Stettinius calendar notes, October 22, 1945, Stettinius MSS, Box 247. For
the Canadian spy case, see Pickersgill and Forster, The Mackenzie King Record,
1945—1946, chapters 2—4; and the Report o f the Royal Commission to Investigate
Disclosures o f Secret and Confidential Information to Unauthorized Persons, passim.
254 The Impotence o f Omnipotence

“I wouldn't think any one human being would take the responsibility
for settling this issue." 16

II
Vandenberg's remark reflected a growing determination on the paît of
Congress, and particularly the Senate, to reassert its traditional authority
over the formulation of foreign policy. For reasons of national security,
legislators during the war had allowed the Chief Executive almost a free
hand in dealing with other countries. Congressmen played a significant
role only in drawing up plans for the United Nations, and then only at
the invitation of the Roosevelt Administration.17 But the wartime rela­
tionship between the White House and Capitol Hill was clearly an ab­
normal one, which legislators, at least, did not expect to continue after
victory. Japan's surrender in August, 1945, signaled the gradual re-
emergence of Congress as a major influence on the making of foreign
policy, and brought about a corresponding diminution in the freedom
of action available to the Truman Administration.
The creation of a Special Senate Committee on Atomic Energy in
October, 1945, made it clear that this was one field in which Congress
would expea to influence policy. Most legislators reacted initially to
news of the atomic bomb by asserting that the United States should not
share the "secret" of its new weapon. Tom Connally, chairman of the
Senate Foreign Relations Committee, suggested that the United Nations
might be given a fleet of “atomic bombers” for use in keeping the peace,
but opposed letting the world organization build bombs of its own.
Richard Russell, another influential Senate Democrat, agreed: “I think
we ought to keep the technical know-how to ourselves as long as possi­
ble." Vandenberg, now ranking Republican on the Foreign Relations
Committee, called for retaining the American atomic monopoly until
there was “absolute free and untrammeled right of intimate inspection
18 Message to Congress of October 3, 1945, Truman Public Papers, 1943, pp.
362—66; Frank McNaughton to Time home office, October 6, 1945, McNaughton
MSS. See also Truman to Tom Connally, September 24, 1945, quoted in Hillman,
Mr. President, p. 49.
17 Roland Young, Congressional Politics in the Second World War, pp. 146—48,
163—64; Westerfield, Foreign Policy and Party Politics, pp. 184—90, 203—12.
The Impotence o f Omnipotence 255

all around the globe.” The Michigan Republican warned his colleagues:
“There can be no dark corners in an atomic age.” 18
Some congressmen felt that the amount of money which the United
States had spent on the bomb entitled it to at least a temporary monop­
oly. Representative Chester E. Merrow, Republican of New Hampshire,
pointed out that the bomb had cost two and a half billion dollars: “Why
anyone should desire to make available the knowledge we have acquired
by our genius and our industry is beyond my comprehension.” Senator
Tom Stewart, a Tennessee Democrat, also stressed the high cost of the
project: “We had to dig out the secret the hard way. . . . I want others
to get the secret the hard way, as we found it.” 19
Fears of how other nations might use the bomb caused many legisla­
tors to oppose sharing knowledge of it. Senator Arthur Capper of Kansas
wanted to know with certainty what Russia would do with atomic
weapons before the United States released “this valuable military secret.”
Calling attention to Soviet intransigence, Representative Harold Knut­
son of Minnesota argued that until Moscow's intentions became clearer,
“we had better keep the atomic-bomb secrets locked up in a burglar-
proof vault.” It would be “unthinkable,” Senator Vandenberg pro­
claimed, to let Russia take the secret of atomic energy “behind its black­
out curtain to do with it whatever Moscow pleases.” American
intentions with regard to the bomb aroused no such anxieties. Senator
Connally observed that the bomb would be safe in the hands of the
United States because “we shall never use it, except in the interest of
world peace or our own necessary self-defense.” Senator Raymond Willis
of Indiana echoed Connally’s views: “We know that we shall use atomic
energy as an instrument of peace. We do not know what is in the minds
of leaders of other nations.” 20
18 Hewlett and Anderson, The New World, pp. 424, 435—36; New York Times,
September 9 and 21, 1945; Vandenberg press statements of August 25, 1945, quoted
in Vandenberg, ed.. Private Papers, p. 221. Connally also favored leaving domestic
control of atomic energy in the hands of the military: “I feared that by diverting con­
trol to civilians, information might leak out so other nations would learn things they
shouldn’t / ' (Tom Connally and Alfred Steinberg, My Name Is Tom Connally, p.
306.)
19 Congressional Record, October 9, 18, 1945, pp. 9502, 9787—88.
20 North American Newspaper Alliance telegraph poll, cited in the New York
Times, September 29, 1945; Vandenberg to Edward A. Thompson, October 26, 1945,
Vandenberg, ed., Private Papers, p. 223; New York Times, September 9, 1945; Con­
gressional Record, October 4, 1945, p. 9407.
256 The Impotence o f Omnipotence

Some members of Congress eventually realized that the United States

could not hope to retain a permanent monopoly over the bomb. Jerry
Voorhis of California, who maintained contacts with the atomic scien­
tists, told the House of Representatives that "if I believed for one mo­
ment that it were possible for the United States to keep the secret, . .
that is what I would be for doing.” But "those who really know” main­
tained unanimously that there was no secret to keep. Senator Vanden-
berg also gradually came around to this point of view: “All of our scien­
tists, without exception, testify that any other nation can . . . in the
course of the next few years . . . produce atomic bombs of their own
whether we like or not.” For this.reason Vandenberg supported interna­
tional control, after foolproof inspection systems had been devised. Other
senators argued, however, that the head start which the United States
enjoyed in bomb development would give it a permanent advantage
over other nations. Senator Johnson of Colorado told the Senate: “We
have the jump on the rest of the world in [the bomb's] development
and use. That is the important thing. We should not fritter away that
significant and tremendous advantage by surrendering its know-how and
its formulas to anyone.” "By the time they have discovered the secret,”
Senator Stewart of Tennessee asserted, "we shall. . . be too far ahead of
them and they will be afraid to use the secret they have discovered.” 21
Congressional fears that the Truman Administration might share
atomic bomb information with Russia reached a high point on Septem­
ber 22, 1945, when newspapers carried accounts of the previous day's
cabinet meeting at which Secretary of Commerce Henry A. Wallace
was reported to have advocated such a course of action. Despite subse­
quent denials from both Wallace and Truman, concern on Capitol Hill
mounted. Time correspondent Frank McNaughton reported to his edi­
tors that "if the Truman Administration should give away the secret
of the atomic bomb there would be hell to pay in Congress. Nothing
the Administration might do could cause more trouble or so severely
shake confidence as this one act.” A quickly arranged telegraph poll of
congressmen taken the following week supported McNaughton's con­
clusions: fifty-five out of sixty-one responding senators and representa-
21 Congressional Record, September 12, October 18, November 28, 1945, pp.
8568—69, 9787—88, 11085—87; Vandenberg to L. F. Beckwith, November 13, 1945,
Vandenberg, ed.. Private Papers, p. 224.
The Im potence o f Omnipotence 257

rives unequivocally opposed sharing knowledge of the bomb with any

country.22
Legislators on Capitol Hill reflected in general the attitudes of their
constituents on the international control of atomic energy. Opinion polls
showed that to a surprising extent Americans realized that their monop­
oly over the bomb would not last. A survey made in September, 1945,
revealed that 82 percent of a national sample expected other nations to
develop bombs of their own sooner or later. The same poll indicated,
however, that 85 percent of those questioned wanted the United States
to retain exclusive possession of the weapon as long as possible. Interna­
tional control evoked little support: a poll taken in August, 1945, and
repeated two months later, showed that more than 70 percent of the
public opposed turning nuclear weapons over to the United Nations.23
Clearly the Truman Administration would have to overcome consider­
able skepticism on the part of Congress and the public if it was to imple­
ment its program of international control.
Congressional wariness on the subject of atomic energy grew largely
out of a distrust of Russia that had increased substantially since the
spring of 1945. Soviet behavior in Eastern Europe had alienated many
Americans, as had the uncompromising position of Russian negotiators
at San Francisco and Potsdam.24 Simultaneously, evidence had begun to
accumulate that the Kremlin might be embarking on a new crusade to
organize world revolution. In April, Jacques Duclos, a leading French
communist, had publicly attacked American party members for collabo­
rating with nonrevolutionary elements during the war. The Daily
Worker, the newspaper of the “nonpartisan” Communist Political Asso­
ciation, reprinted Duclos’s criticisms, together with a contrite acknowl­
edgment by Earl Browder of their validity. Shortly thereafter the associa­
tion dissolved itself, becoming once more the Communist Party of the
United States. Early in June, six people, including several State Depart­
ment officials, were arrested for having leaked sensitive documents to the
22 New York Times, September 22 and 24, 1945; McNaughton to Time home of­
fice, September 22, 1945, McNaughton MSS; North American Newspaper Alliance
poll, cited in the New York Times, September 29, 1945.
23 National Opinion Research Center poll of September, 1945, American Institute of
Public Opinion polls of August 22 and October 3, 1945, cited in Cantril and Strunk,
eds.. Public Opinion, pp. 21—22. See also Department of State, “Fortnightly Survey of
American Opinion,“ Nos. 34 and 36, September 6 and October 5, 1945.
24 On this point, see chapter 7.
258 The Impotence o f Omnipotence

editors of the journal Amerasia. Only two of the six were prosecuted,
and these received light fines, but the fact that the editor of Amerasia
had been seen with Browder and the Soviet consul in New York led
many observers to suspect espionage.25
The House Committee on Un-American Activities had seemed almost
moribund after the decision of its chairman, Martin Dies of Texas, not
to seek reelection in 1944. But when the Seventy-ninth Congress met
early in January, 1945, John E. Rankin of Mississippi executed a smooth
parliamentary maneuver which transformed the body into a permanent
standing committee of the House, with broad investigative powers. The
apparent shift in tactics by the international communist movement in
the spring of 1945 gave the revived committee a tempting target, and in
September it began its first postwar investigation of American commu­
nism. The committee wanted to find out, according to Representative
Gerald W. Landis, “whether the Communists are still planning to de­
stroy or overthrow the American system of government.” Rankin, with a
shrewd eye for publicity, added that the hearings would cover the Holly­
wood film industry: “Alien elements are at work out there to overthrow
our Government by means of subtle propaganda in our movies.” The
inept broadsides of Rankin and his colleagues shed little light on the
real relationship between the Kremlin and American communists, but
they did publicize the possibility of internal subversion at a time when
Soviet-American relations were rapidly deteriorating.26
25 W alter Goodman, The Committee: The Extraordinary Career o f the House Com­
mittee on Un-American Activities, pp. 175—76; Earl Latham, The Communist Contro­
versy in Washington, pp. 203—16; U.S. Senate, Committee on the Judiciary, Subcom­
mittee to Investigate the Administration of the Internal Security Act and Other
Internal Security Laws, The uAmerasia** Papers: A Clue to the Catastrophe o f China,
passim. For the effect of the Duclos article on the American Communist Party, see Irv­
ing Howe and Louis Coser, The American Communist Party: A Critical History
(2919—1957), pp. 437—49; David Shannon, The Decline o f American Communism,
chapter 1; and Irving Ross, “It’s Tough to Be a Communist,” Harper*s, CXCII (June,
1946), 533—36. Historians have differed sharply on the intent behind the Duclos arti­
cle. See, for example, Schlesinger, “Origins of the Cold W ar,” pp. 43—44, which
argues that the article did signify a reversion to revolutionary tactics, and Kolko, Poli­
tics o f War, pp. 441—42, which asserts that it did not. Whatever the purpose of the
article, however, it is clear that observers in Washington interpreted it as an ominous
shift in the party line.
26 Goodman, The Committee, pp. 167—70, 176; New York Times, September 24,
1945.
The Impotence o f Omnipotence 259

Shortly after V-E Day, several other congressional committees began

clamoring for the opportunity to investigate Russian-American relations
by visiting the Soviet Union. Ambassador Harriman secured assurances
from Molotov that such groups would be welcome, and at least three
separate delegations of legislators made the trip during the late summer
congressional recess. One of these groups, composed of seven members of
the House Select Committee on Postwar Economic Policy and Planning,
toured Russia and thirteen other European countries in an effort to de­
cide what American policy should be regarding postwar loans to foreign
governments. On September 14,1945, this delegation, led by Committee
Chairman William M. Colmer of Mississippi, enjoyed the distinction of
a personal interview with Joseph Stalin.27
Colmer told the Soviet leader that his committee knew about the Rus­
sian desire for a loan from the United States. How, he wanted to know,
would the Soviets use the money, how would they pay it back, and what
could Washington expect in return? Stalin acknowledged that the Soviet
Union had applied for a $6 billion loan some six months earlier, but
had heard nothing from the United States since. The loan, he said,
would be used to purchase American industrial equipment which the So­
viets wanted for reconstruction, and would be repaid by exports of gold
and various raw materials. Stalin expressed irritation about American in­
quisitiveness regarding repayment: Washington was talking freely about
lending money to Chiang Kai-shek— surely the Soviet Union had
greater capabilities of paying back a loan than did the Chinese. Colmer
thought Stalin’s answers “responsive although at times . . . evasive.”
The Soviet Union’s police-state atmosphere shocked the Mississippi con­
gressman and his colleagues, however, as did the strong fear of Russia
which they encountered in surrounding countries. The delegation
stopped off in London on its way home to report to Secretary of State
27 Harriman to Stettinius, June 15, 1945, FR: 1945, V, 861—62. Also visiting Rus­
sia in September, 1945, were four members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee,
investigating the need for aid under the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Ad­
ministration, and Democratic Senator Claude Pepper of Florida, who went to Russia as
a private citizen. The House Foreign Affairs Committee delegation report, not issued
until May 31, 1946, is printed in US. News, XX (June 28, 1946), 63—70. On Pep­
per's visit, see his account, written for the North American Newspaper Alliance and
printed in the New York Times, October 1, 1945; Kennan to Acheson, September 15,
1945, FR: 1945, V, 881-84; and Time, XLVI (October 1, 1945), 27.
260 The Impotence o f Omnipotence

Byrnes, and later conferred personally with President Truman. Before

both men Colmer s group stressed the necessity “of stiffening our collec­
tive backbone in dealing with the Soviet Republic/’ 28
The Colmer committee was willing to approve an American loan to
the Soviet Union, but only if the Russians met certain conditions. They
would have to disclose what proportion of total production they devoted
to armaments. They would be required to reveal vital statistics on the
operation of the Soviet economy, and to provide an opportunity to check
the accuracy of these figures. The Soviet Union would have to give up
the administration of relief for political purposes in Eastern Europe and
disclose the terms of its trade treaties with the countries of this area.
W ithin both the USSR and the East European countries under its con­
trol, the Kremlin would have to guarantee full protection of American
property, the right to distribute American books, magazines, newspapers,
and motion pictures, freedom of religion, freedom of the press, and free
elections. Finally, the United States should insist upon “the fulfillment of
Russia’s political obligations on the same terms as those of other Gov­
ernments. This includes the withdrawal of Russian occupation forces in
accordance with the Potsdam agreements and the Yalta conference and
other agreements.*’ In short, Colmer and his colleagues demanded that,
in return for an American loan, the Soviet Union reform its internal sys­
tem of government and abandon the sphere of influence it had so care­
fully constructed in Eastern Europe. “Unless Russia reconverts her war
machine to peace,” Colmer asked, "why should we support it? It may
mean business, b u t . . . it may not be good business.” 29
The Truman Administration still had not given up the idea of a loan
28 Kennan to Acheson, September 15, 1945, FR: 1945, V, 881—84. See also a sum­
mary of notes taken by an unnamed member of the delegation and published in the
New York Times, November 8, 1945; and Representative Colmer's own account of
the interview. Congressional Record, August 2, 1946, pp. A4895—A4898. George F.
Kennan, who served as interpreter for the delegation, recalls that one slightly intoxi­
cated congressman went into the meeting with Stalin threatening loudly to “biff the
old codger one in the nose/' Much to Kennan s relief, however, the congressman “did
nothing more disturbing than to leer and wink once or twice at the bewildered dicta­
tor.“ The incident, Kennan says, was one in a long series “that gradually bred in me a
deep skepticism about the absolute value of people-to-people contacts for the improve­
ment of international relations.” (Kennan, Memoirs, pp. 276—77.)
29 New York Times, November 12, 1945; Colmer address to a meeting of the N a­
tional Industrial Conference Board, New York City, November 20, 1945, printed in
the Congressional Record, November 26, 1945, pp. A5103—A5105.
The Im potence o f Om nipotence 261

to the Soviet Union; it simply sought to withhold economic assistance

until the Kremlin made certain concessions in the political sphere. Dur­
ing the summer of 1945 Administration officials had secured from Con­
gress an increase in the lending authority of the Export-Import Bank, so
that a loan could be granted without precipitating a full-scale debate on
Capitol Hill. This approach did not take the question completely out of
the hands of legislators, however, for they could still make trouble for
the Administration if they disapproved of the terms of the loan. Col-
mer’s committee made it clear that, to satisfy Congress, the State Depart­
ment would have to demand such sweeping political concessions as to
make Moscow's rejection of the loan a foregone conclusion. Assistant
Secretary of State Will Clayton explained to Ambassador Harriman late
in November that the department had been “pursuing [a] policy of not
encouraging active discussions and at present [the] matter is dor­
mant.“ 30
The net effect of the reassertion of congressional authority which took
place in the fall of 1945 was to drive the Truman Administration to­
ward a firmer Russian policy. Whether Congress would support the meas­
ures necessary to implement such a program, however, was open to
doubt. Although the United States now had an atomic bomb, its conven­
tional armed forces, after V-J Day, had begun to disappear. More than
twelve million men and women had been on active duty in all branches
of the services at the end of June, 1945. One year later this figure would
drop to barely three million. By June of 1947, the number of military
personnel would be down to one and a half million. Secretary of W ar
Patterson and Navy Secretary Forrestal warned the cabinet as early as
October 26, 1945, that the rapid pace of demobilization was threatening
the American strategic position throughout the world. President Truman
agreed: “So far as I was concerned, the program we were following
was no longer demobilization— it was disintegration of our armed
forces.” 31
^C layton to Harriman, November 30, 1943, FR: 1945, V, 1048. See also Herring,
‘‘Aid to Russia, 1941—1946,’* chapter 9.
31 U.S. Bureau of Census, Historical Statistics o f the United States, Colonial Times
to 1957, p. 736; Truman, Year o f Decisions, p. 509. Adam B. Ulam suggests that
American fears regarding the strategic impact of demobilization may have been exag­
gerated. Apparently the Soviet Union also demobilized rapidly after W orld W ar II.
(Expansion and Coexistence, p. 414).
262 The Impotence o f Omnipotence

But Truman could do little to resist demands to "bring the boys

home." Congressmen found their mailboxes filled with letters from wives
calling for the quick return of their husbands, often accompanied by
baby pictures and even baby shoes. At one point a group of furious war
wives literally besieged General Eisenhower in a congressman’s office on
Capitol Hill where he had gone to testify on demobilization. Servicemen
in the Far East stamped home-bound mail with the legend “No Boats
No Votes,” an obvious reference to possible retaliation in the 1946 con­
gressional elections if the release of troops did not speed up. In January
of 1946, riots broke out at several overseas military installations to pro­
test the slow pace of demobilization. “The President has shown a lot of
guts in many matters,” former Undersecretary of State Joseph Grew
wrote to a friend, “but if you can persuade him to stop demobilization,
with all its political implications, you’re a bigger man than I am.” 32
Prospects that Congress would approve Administration plans for a
postwar military establishment seemed dim. In October, 1945, Truman
called for the continuation of selective service and the institution of uni­
versal military training, a program which would require a year of train­
ing for all physically-fit eighteen-year-old men. Both proposals aroused
strong opposition in a nation which had never before known permanent
conscription in peacetime. Moreover, with the war over many Americans
hoped for relief from the crushing burden of taxation which a large mili­
tary program would require. By December, 1945, Newsweek's editors
saw little chance that Congress would extend the draft past its May 15,
1946, deadline, while “only dramatically menacing world developments”
appeared likely to secure passage of universal military training. James
Reston noted early in 1946 that those congressmen who shouted loudest
for a tough anti-Russian policy were the least willing to vote the money
and the manpower necessary to implement such a policy.33
In assuming this contradictory stance, legislators were merely reflect­
ing the views of their constituents, most of whom wanted the govern­
ment to “get tough with Russia” while at the same time bringing back
the low taxes and volunteer military forces of the prewar period. Not for
32 R. Alton Lee, “The Army ‘Mutiny’ of 1946,“ Journal o f American History, LIII
(December, 1966), 555—71; Newsweek, XXVII (February 4, 1946), 55—57; Grew to
Barrett Wendell, November 16, 1945, Grew MSS, Box 123.
33 Truman, Year o f Decisions, pp. 510—11; Newsweek, XXVII (January 7, 1946),
16; New York Times, March 17, 1946.
The Im potence o f Omnipotence 263

some time would Americans realize that they could not have both. This
attitude on the part of Congress and the public left the Truman Admin­
istration in an awkward position: further compromises with the Russians
were sure to be politically unpopular, yet strategically the nation was in
no condition to resist the Kremlin’s next moves. Under these circum­
stances it is not surprising that, despite their atomic monopoly, Ameri­
can officials felt very little freedom to maneuver as they turned to the
problem of postwar relations with the Soviet Union.

Ill
The first postwar confrontation with Russia came in September, 1945,
when the foreign ministers of the United States, the USSR, Great Brit­
ain, France, and China met in London to draw up peace treaties for Fin­
land, Hungary, Rumania, and Bulgaria, all former German satellites.
American diplomats had not sought to challenge Russian control of
these countries as long as the war was on, but after Germany’s surrender
they expected free elections to be held in accordance with the Yalta
Declaration on Liberated Europe. Moscow seemed willing to tolerate
democratic procedures in Finland and possibly Hungary, but American
observers in Bucharest and Sofia accused Soviet occupying forces of
trying to set up puppet governments in Rumania and Bulgaria. Truman
expressed concern over these reports, and late in the summer of 1945
began an effort to secure Russian compliance with the agreement made
at Yalta.34
State Department officials realized that the United States lacked the
power to influence directly events in Rumania and Bulgaria, but hoped
that by delaying the signature of peace treaties and withholding diplo­
matic recognition they could force implementation of the Yalta accord.
Truman and Byrnes endorsed this strategy, and at Potsdam made it clear
to the Russians that the United States would not recognize or make
34 Joseph C Grew memorandum of a conversation between Truman and Arthur
Bliss Lane, June 4, 1945, quoted in Grew, Turbulent Era, II, 1464—65. For reports
from American observers in Rumania and Bulgaria, see ibid., pp. 1454—55; and FR:
Potsdam, I, 357—432. News that the Russians were seizing Americanowned industrial
equipment in Eastern Europe as reparations intensified the Administration’s concern.
{Ibid., pp. 420-32.)
264 The Impotence o f Omnipotence

peace with the former German satellites in Eastern Europe until their
governments had been reorganized and until American press and radio
correspondents had been admitted. Byrnes told Molotov that “we would,
frankly, always be suspicious of elections in countries where our repre­
sentatives are not free to move about and where the press cannot report
freely.” Truman promised Stalin that “when Hungary, Rumania, and
Bulgaria were set up on a basis where we could have free access to them,
we would recognize them but not sooner.” 35
Information that the atomic bomb would soon be ready contributed
to the Administration's decision to press for self-determination in the
Balkans. Byrnes explained to Joseph E. Davies at Potsdam that “the
New Mexico situation £the first successful test of the bomb] had given
us great power, and that in the final analysis, it would control.” Late in
August, the Secretary of State told John J. McCloy that he intended to
go to the London Foreign Ministers’ Conference with the implied threat
of the bomb in his pocket, and on September 4 Stimson recorded in his
diary a similar conversation with Byrnes: “His mind is full of his prob­
lem with the coming meeting of the foreign ministers and he looks to
having the presence of the bomb in his pocket, so to speak, as a great
weapon.” The Secretary of State begged Stimson to keep the President
from even mentioning the possibility of international control until after
the London meeting.36
Byrnes’s hope th at Am erican possession o f the bomb would make the
Russians m ore m anageable was quickly frustrated, however, for at Lon­
don M olotov proved to be more stubborn than ever. T he Soviet foreign
m inister reiterated the bid Stalin had m ade at Potsdam for R ussian con­
trol o f form er Italian colonies in Africa. H e also accused the Americans
o f supporting anti-Russian elem ents in Eastern Europe, and asserted th at
the regim es in Rum ania and Bulgaria were m ore representative than the
British-sponsored governm ent o f Greece. W hen Byrnes argued th at
35 Potsdam briefing book paper, “Recommended Policy on the Question of Estab­
lishing Diplomatic Relations and Concluding Peace Treaties with the Former Axis Sat­
ellite States/' June 29, 1945, FR: Potsdam, I, 357—62; Llewellyn E. Thompson min­
utes, 5th foreign ministers' meeting, July 22, 1945, ibid., II, 231; Thompson minutes,
8th plenary meeting, July 24, 1945, ibid., II, 359.
36 Davies Journal, July 29, 1945, Davies MSS, Box 19; Stimson Diary, August
12-September 4, 1945, Stimson MSS; minutes of the meeting of the Secretaries of
State, W ar, and Navy, October 10, 1945, FR: 1945, II, 55-56.
The Im potence o f Omnipotence 265

American correspondents had been allowed into Greece but had been
kept out of Rumania and Bulgaria, Molotov neatly parried: “Apparently
in Greece the correspondents were happy, but the people were not;
whereas in Rumania the people were happy, but the correspondents
were not.” The USSR, Molotov added, considered the feelings of the
people more important than those of the correspondents. The Soviet dip­
lomat made Moscow’s position clear: unless the British and Americans
accepted Russian terms for peace treaties in Eastern Europe, he would
not accept the Anglo-American draft terminating hostilities with Italy.
Byrnes patiently tried to reason with Molotov in a series of private
meetings. The long dispute over Poland, he explained, had made the
American people sensitive to the need for strict observance of the Yalta
agreements. Americans knew that Moscow had imposed a subservient re­
gime on Rumania, and that neither in that country nor in Bulgaria
could American newsmen travel freely. The Secretary of State asked
Molotov to look at the problem from his point of view: If he did sign
treaties with Bucharest and Sofia, they would have to go before the Sen­
ate. How, the senators would wonder, did Byrnes know that regimes in
those countries had popular support? The Secretary of State would have
to reply that, because of the exclusion of American correspondents, he
knew little about these governments. The Senate would then probably
reject the treaties. Byrnes assured Molotov that the United States did not
want unfriendly governments along Russia’s border. But neither did it
want unrepresentative regimes which would violate the Yalta Declara­
tion on Liberated Europe. Could not coalitions be formed which would
be friendly to the Russians and at the same time representative? If this
could be done, it would be greeted with joy in the United States and
would permit Byrnes to support the Soviet position as he wished to do.37
The Soviet foreign minister remained unmoved. In an apparent at­
tempt to improve his bargaining position, he called on September 22 for
the exclusion of France and China from further discussion of the satellite
peace treaties, arguing that their participation up to this point had vio­
lated instructions agreed upon by the Big Three at Potsdam. Two days
later, Molotov demanded establishment of an Allied Control Council in
Japan, composed of representatives from the United States, the Soviet
37 Bohlen minutes, Byrnes-Molotov conversations, September 16 and 19, 1945, FR:
1945, II, 194-201, 243-47.
266 The Impotence o f Omnipotence

Union, Great Britain, and China, to supervise the policies of General

Douglas MacArthur and the American occupation forces. Byrnes refused
to give in on either of these points, and after a futile appeal to Stalin by
Truman, the conference broke up early in October with Big Three unity
in serious disarray. The foreign ministers could not even agree on a pub­
lic communiqué.38
The failure of the London Conference left Byrnes surprised and disap­
pointed. Publicly he maintained a conciliatory posture: the experience of
London, he told a national radio audience shortly after his return, had
shown “the hard reality that none of us can expect to write the peace in
our own way.” But in private, the Secretary of State bitterly accused
Moscow of duplicity: “The Russians were welching on all the agree­
ments reached at Potsdam and at Yalta.” Stalin’s word was worth little,
Byrnes warned his cabinet colleagues:
Though they had a formal treaty of non-aggression with Japan the Russians,
as far back as Yalta, were making definite plans for their attack upon Japan.
. . . Stalin and Molotov would probably be insulted today if you implied
that they had intended to keep their solemn treaty with Hitler. By implica­
tion of the same process of reasoning, it would not be wise for us to rely on
their word today.
There was no question, the Secretary of State told his predecessor, Stet-
tinius,
but that we were facing a new Russia, totally different than the Russia we
dealt with a year ago. As long as they needed us in the W ar and we were
giving them supplies we had a satisfactory relationship but now that the
W ar was over they were taking an aggressive attitude and stand on political
and territorial questions that was indefensible.

38 FR: 1945, II, 313-15, 328-29, 331, 334, 336-39, 357-58. The United States
had rebuffed an earlier Russian bid for a role in the occupation of Japan, made at the
time of that country’s surrender in August, 1945. On this episode, see Herbeit Feis,
Contest over Japan, pp. 15—17, 19—20; Deane, The Strange Alliance, pp. 278—79;
and Truman, Year o f Decisions, pp. 412, 430—32, 440—44. In his memoirs, Byrnes
states that Molotov brought up the question of Japan in a private meeting on Septem­
ber 22, before discussing the matter of French and Chinese participation in negotiat­
ing the satellite peace treaties. {Speaking Frankly, p. 102.) Feis has concluded from
this that the Russians were mainly interested in the Japanese question and brought up
the exclusion of France and China only after Byrnes had avoided discussion of it.
(Contest over Japan, p. 42.) But the official American records of the conference, cited
above, contain no indication that Japan was discussed prior to September 24.
The Im potence o f Omnipotence 267

W hat the Russians really wanted, Byrnes thought, were uranium depos­
its in the Belgian Congo; hence Molotov’s interest in the Italian colonies
of Libya and Tripolitania. The Soviet foreign minister had been “insuf­
ferable,” the Secretary of State told Joseph Davies; he was “almost
ashamed” for having taken what he did from Molotov. If the Senate
ever found out how the Russians had behaved at London, the situation
would become “very much worse.” 39
But members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee strongly ap­
plauded Byrnes’s refusal to compromise when he appeared before them
on October 8. The only question in the minds of the senators seemed to
be whether the Secretary had been tough enough with the Russians, and
whether he intended to continue this policy in the future. Similarly John
Foster Dulles, who had attended the London Conference as a Republi­
can observer, praised Byrnes’s decision to “stand firm for basic princi­
ples.” Professions of wartime unity had been nothing more than “sooth­
ing syrup,” Dulles argued; it was no longer necessary, nor was it
healthy, to hide the fact that fundamental differences now existed be­
tween the United States and the Soviet Union.40
The London Conference demonstrated clearly that simple possession
of an atomic bomb had not made the United States omnipotent in its
dealings with Moscow— the Russians seemed almost to go out of their
way to show that they had not been impressed. Byrnes had no intention
of actually threatening use of the bomb to force concessions from the
Russians, but he had hoped to hold back an American commitment to
the international control of atomic energy until the Soviet Union agreed
to a European peace settlement which Washington could accept.41 Mo­
lotov’s studied intransigence at London, however, raised doubts as to
39 Byrnes radio address of October 5, 1945, Department o f State Bulletin, X III (Oc­
tober 7, 1945), 507; Stettinius calendar notes, September 12, 1945, Stettinius MSS,
Box 247; minutes of a meeting of the Secretaries of State, W ar, and Navy, October
16, 1945, FR: 1945, II, 59—61; Stettinius calendar notes, September 28, 1945, Stettin­
ius MSS, Box 247; Davies notes of conversation with Byrnes, October 9, 1945, Davies
MSS, Box 22. See also Millis, ed.. The Forrestal Diaries, pp. 102—3.
40 New York Times, October 7, 9, 1945; Time, XLVI (October 15, 1945), 21;
Curry, Byrnes, p. 157. See also James Restons column in the New York Times, Octo­
ber 14, 1945.
41 Stettinius calendar notes, September 28, 1945, Stettinius MSS, Box 247; minutes
of the meeting of the Secretaries of State, W ar, and Navy, October 10, 1945, FR:
1945, II, 55-57.
268 The Impotence o f Omnipotence

whether the Russians were interested in signing peace treaties on any

terms but their own. Moreover, Truman's October 3, 1945, message to
Congress on atomic energy, made without consulting the absent Secre­
tary of State, had undercut Byrnes's bargaining strategy by endorsing in­
ternational control long before any European peace agreements were in
sight.
Truman's decision to commit the United States to the principle of in­
ternational control worried the Secretary of State. Molotov, he told Pat­
terson and Forrestal, might now insist on taking up the issue of atomic
energy before concluding peace treaties with the defeated German satel­
lites. Besides, not enough yet was known about technical aspects of the
problem to draw up a workable control scheme. Public ventilation of the
subject would only intensify pressure, both at home and abroad, for the
United States to relinquish control of the bomb too soon. Accordingly
Byrnes planned to “plead with the President not to push the question of
consultation.''42
But the President had already backed away from the full implications
of his October 3 message. In a press conference on the 8th, he distin­
guished between the scientific principles which had been applied to
build the bomb and the actual technical processes of construction: “So
far as the scientific knowledge is concerned, all the scientists [in the
world] know the answer, but how to put it to work practically is our se­
cret. . . . If they catch up with us on that, they will have to do it on
their own hook, just as we did.” Truman's first major postwar speech on
foreign policy, delivered in New York on October 27, 1945, suggested
that the world might be better off if the bomb remained in American
hands:
In our possession of this weapon, as in our possession of other new weapons,
there is no threat to any nation. The world, which has seen the United States
in two great recent wars, knows that full well. The possession in our hands
of this new power of destruction we regard as a sacred trust. Because of our
love of peace, the thoughtful people of the world know that that trust will
not be violated, that it will be faithfully executed.

This address led the editors of the Nation to comment that Truman had
assumed the ambitious task of conducting American foreign policy si-
42 Ibid., p. 56.
The Im potence o f Omnipotence 269

multaneously according to the principles of Theodore Roosevelt and St.

Francis of Assisi.43
Writing to a close friend early in November, Forrestal explained that
the President simply had not yet committed himself firmly on the sub­
ject of international control: “Until the Russians indicate that they are
willing to play on a basis of reciprocal confidence it is very difficult to
establish the basis for negotiations.” Forrestal felt that Truman was “pas­
sionately desirous” of making peace as soon as possible, but was at the
same time reluctant to relinquish an element of American power which
might help shape the final settlement.44
The President's emphasis on exclusive possession of the bomb, to­
gether with his apparent delay in formulating a policy on international
control, stimulated considerable criticism from liberal observers. Radio
commentator Raymond Gram Swing, who had close ties with the
atomic scientists, charged as early as October 12 that Truman was seek­
ing security through “the power to kill rather than . . . the power to
reason,” and called on public opinion and Congress to force a repudia­
tion of this policy. Mrs. Franklin D. Roosevelt wondered publicly how
“we can hold this secret and expect others to trust us when we, appar­
ently, do not trust anyone else.” J. Robert Oppenheimer told Byrnes that
negotiations with the Russians on international control should not be
delayed any further. Byrnes replied gruffly that the Administration, not
the scientists, would handle diplomatic questions.45
But Truman was also coming under pressure from the British and Ca­
nadians, with whom he had promised to discuss international control.
On October 16, Prime Minister Clement Attlee reported strong senti­
ment in Parliament for a statement on atomic energy. Attlee offered to
delay until he could consult with Truman, but warned that he could not
43Truman Public Papers: 1945, pp. 381—82, 437; Nation, CLXI (November 3,
1945), 445. Truman does not quote this portion of his October 27 speech in Year o f
Decisions, pp. 537—38.
44Forrestal to E. Palmer Hoyt, November 1, 1945, Forrestal MSS, Box 63.
45Swing radio broadcast of October 12, 1945, Swing MSS, Box 28; Time, XLVI
(October 22, 1945), 22; Byrnes account of conversation with Oppenheimer, minutes
of a meeting of the Secretaries of State, War, and Navy, October 23, 1945, PR: 1945,
11, 61—62. A State Department survey of editorial opinion noted that the President's
press conference statement on October 8 had received “severe criticism and demands
for reconsideration . . . from a large number of editors and commentators." (“Fort­
nightly Survey of American Opinion,” No. 37, October 19, 1945).
270 The Impotence o f Omnipotence

postpone comment indefinitely. The first full session of the United Na­
tions General Assembly was to take place in London in January, 1946.
The success of this meeting might be jeopardized if no policy on interna­
tional control had been agreed upon. Attlee offered to come to Wash­
ington as soon as possible with Canadian Prime Minister Mackenzie
King to begin negotiations. In his October 27 address, Truman men­
tioned once again the possibility of talks with the British and Canadians,
and three days later announced that Attlee and Mackenzie King would
arrive early in November.46
Nevertheless, Truman and Byrnes still dragged their feet in formulat­
ing a policy to be put forth in these negotiations. Several times during
October Secretary of W ar Patterson prodded Byrnes without result to
begin work on this matter, and on November 1 he expressed his anxie­
ties in a formal letter to the Secretary of State. Patterson also communi­
cated his concern to Vannevar Bush, who asked to see Byrnes on No­
vember 3. From this meeting Bush learned to his dismay that “there was
no organization for the meeting, no agenda being prepared, and no
American plan in form to present.” The Secretary of State then surprised
Bush by asking him to formulate such a plan. Pulling his wits together,
Bush spent the weekend drawing up suggestions for the negotiations and
on November 5, five days before Attlee and Mackenzie King were due
to arrive, presented his ideas to Byrnes.47
The basic American objective, Bush wrote, was to avoid an atomic
arms race which could lead to a future war. The major difficulty in­
volved was the suspicious attitude of the Soviet government. The solu­
tion was “to make the agreements in such manner that it will be in Rus­
sia's interest to keep them.” Bush advocated proposing to the Russians a
series of steps, to each of which the Soviet Union would be asked to con­
form. First, the Russians would be invited to join with the British and
46Attlee to Truman, October 16, 1945, FR: 1945, II, 58-59; Truman Public Pa­
pers: 1945, pp. 437, 453. For a summary of the British attitude toward international
control, see Hewlett and Anderson, The New World, pp. 456—58.
47Minutes of the meeting of the Secretaries of State, War, and Navy, October 16
and 23, 1945, FR: 1945, II, 59—62; Patterson to Byrnes, November 1, 1945, cited in
Hewlett and Anderson, The New World, p. 459; memorandum by Captain R. Gordon
Arneson on “Negotiations with the British and Canadians, November 1—November
16, 1945,” April 17,' 1946, FR: 1945, II, 63—69; Bush to Stimson, November 13,
1945, Stimson MSS, Box 427. See also Vannevar Bush, Pieces o f the Action, pp.
296-97.
The Impotence o f Omnipotence 111

the Americans to create, under the auspices of the United Nations Gen­
eral Assembly, an organization to disseminate scientific information in
all fields, including atomic fission. This would cost the United States
nothing because most of this scientific information would be available to
the Russians anyway. It would, however, serve as a test of Moscow's in­
tentions. The second step would involve formation of a United Nations
Commission of Inspection which would have the right to inspect any sci­
entific laboratory in any country engaging in atomic research. The com­
mission would assume its functions gradually, so that the United States
would not immediately have to expose the operations of its atomic
plants. After the inspection system had been perfected, all nations would
agree as a third step to stockpile materials capable of atomic fission, re­
leasing them for peaceful purposes only. The Commission of Inspection
would report any diversion of fissionable material to the production of
weapons. Until the full plan went into effect, the United States would
continue to produce material necessary to make bombs, but would prom­
ise the world not to assemble actual weapons. After the inspection sys­
tem had begun to operate, other nations would be invited to inspect this
American stockpile of fissionable material.48
President Truman endorsed these proposals on November 7 appar­
ently because, as Bush noted, they constituted the only plan the
Administration had. In the process of drafting the formal document,
however, the State Department added one additional step providing for
safeguards to protea states which complied with the agreement. As fi­
nally approved by Truman, Attlee, and Mackenzie King on November
15, 1945, the agreement called for establishment of a United Nations
commission which would work
(a) for extending between all nations the exchange of basic scien­
tific information for peaceful ends;
(b) for control of atomic energy to the extent necessary to ensure its
use only for peaceful purposes;
(c) for the elimination from national armaments of atomic weap­
ons and of all other major weapons adaptable to mass destruc­
tion;
(d) for effeaive safeguards by way of inspection and other means to
48 Bush to Byrnes, November 5, 1945, FR: 1945, II, 69-73; Bush and Groves to
Byrnes, November 9, 1945, ibid., p. 74.
272 The Impotence o f Omnipotence

protea complying states against the hazards of violations and

evasions.
The accord specified that “the work of the Commission should proceed
by separate stages, the successful completion of one of which will de­
velop the necessary confidence of the world before the next stage is
undertaken.” 49
The Truman-Attlee-King agreement was a cautious plan which did
not, as Bush repeatedly pointed out, provide for any premature relin­
quishment of the American atomic monopoly. The international control
system would go into effea gradually, one step at a time, a feature of the
plan which would cause confusion later on because the State Depart­
ment had made the institution of safeguards the last step in the process.
If at any time the Russians failed to complete a step to American satis-
faaion, the United States could drop out. All in all Bush approved of
the plan, although the slipshod method in which policy had been formu­
lated appalled him: “I have never participated in anything that was so
completely unorganized or so irregular,” he wrote to Stimson. “I have
had experiences in the past week that would make a chapter in ‘Alice in
Wonderland/ ” 50
The improvised nature of the Truman-Attlee-King accord made it im­
possible for the Administration to consult congressional leaders until
only a few minutes before the agreement was publicly announced. Sena­
tor Robert La Follette had warned Admiral Leahy two days earlier that
the members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee resented their
exclusion from the policy-making process. Now the two leading mem­
bers of that committee, Connally and Vandenberg, reacted with consid­
erable irritation, even to the extreme point of refusing to pose for pic­
tures with Truman, Attlee, and Mackenzie King. Connally told Byrnes
that he and Truman had no authority to promise to share information
on atomic energy without consulting Congress. Vandenberg returned to
the Senate and made a long-planned speech on the “iron curtain” in
which he emphasized pointedly that it was in the Congress “where a
basic and unavoidable share of the responsibility for these fateful deci­
sions inevitably resides and where it is going to stay.” 51
49Bush to Stimson, November 13, 1945, Stimson MSS, Box 427; Hewlett and An­
derson, The New World, pp. 461—65; Truman Public Papers: 1945, pp. 472—75.
50Bush to Stimson, November 13, 1945, Stimson MSS, Box 427.
51Leahy Diary, November 13, 1945, Leahy MSS; Vandenberg, ed., Private Papers,
The Im potence o f Omnipotence 273

The manner in which the Truman Administration handled the issue

of international control illustrated the confused state of policy-making in
Washington in the fall of 1945. In the belief that American possession
of the bomb would make the Russians easier to deal with, Byrnes had
opposed even discussing the subject until after a general European peace
settlement. But Truman, under pressure from the atomic scientists and
advisers like Stimson and Acheson, publicly endorsed international con­
trol without consulting the Secretary of State. Byrnes did manage to
delay formulation of a specific control proposal for a time, but could not
do so indefinitely because of the President’s earlier public statement.
Meanwhile no one had consulted Congress, whose leaders, suspicious
from the beginnning of international control, had come to believe that
the Administration was about to give the bomb away. Actually the
views of the President, the Secretary of State, and congressional leaders
were not far apart. All would likely have agreed with Truman when he
told Joseph Davies in September, 1945 :
When we get down to cases, is any one of the Big Powers—are we, going
to give up these locks and bolts which are necessary to protect our house
. . . against possible outlaw attack . . . , until experience and good judg­
ment say that the community is sufficiently stable and decent, and the police
force sufficiently reliable to do that job for us[?] Clearly we are not. Nor are
the Soviets. Nor is any country if it can help itself.*52
But confusion over tactics obscured agreement regarding goals, so that
by the end of 1945 a serious conflict had developed between the State
Department and Congress over the international control of atomic en­
ergy.

Shortly after the conclusion of the London Conference, James Reston ob­
served that two schools of thought on how to handle Russia now existed
within the government, based on contradictory perceptions of Moscow’s
intentions. One group of policy-makers had virtually written off the pos-
pp. 226—27; Newsweek, XXVI (November 26, 1945), 34; Congressional Record, No­
vember 15, 1945, pp. 10696—99.
52 Davies notes of conversation with Truman, September 18, 1945, Davies MSS,
Box 22.
274 The Impotence o f Omnipotence

sibility of settling outstanding issues, arguing that the Kremlin was

firmly committed to a program of unlimited expansion. Further conces­
sions would only whet Stalin’s appetite; the United States and its West­
ern European allies should begin pooling their military and economic re­
sources if the Russian dictator’s ambitions were to be thwarted and the
world balance of power restored. These officials applauded Byrnes’s hard
line at London as a step in the right direction. But a second group
within the government held that the Soviet Union still shared with the
United States a common interest in establishing a world security system
which would prevent future wars. They admitted that serious disagree­
ments had arisen, but felt that these could be overcome if both sides
showed a willingness to negotiate and compromise. This more optimistic
group did not condone Soviet behavior in Eastern Europe, but ques­
tioned whether the Kremlin could realistically be expected to relax its
control over that part of the world while the United States continued to
oppose Russian participation in the occupation of Japan and in the ad­
ministration of former Italian colonies in Africa.53
Much of the confusion which surrounded the formulation of Ameri­
can policy in the fall of 1945 stemmed from the fact that the Truman
Administration had not yet committed itself to either point of view.
Congressional leaders and most military officials had, by this time, begun
to advocate a firmer approach to Moscow. Members of the Senate For­
eign Relations Committee had given Byrnes a warm reception on his re­
turn from London, and Navy Secretary Forrestal was advising the Presi­
dent to speak out publicly against the Russians in order to counteract
growing pressure for demobilization. Truman himself seemed to be mov­
ing toward a tough line. In his Navy Day address on October 27 the
President announced that while in some cases it might not be possible to
prevent forcible imposition of an unrepresentative regime on an unwill­
ing people, the United States would never recognize any such govern­
ment.54
But Truman had not, at this time, given up hope of reaching an ac­
commodation with the Russians. In a long private conversation with
53New York Times, September 30, October 14, 1945.
54New York Times, October 9, 1945; Newsweek, XXVI (October 22, 1945), 30;
Forrestal Diary, October 16, 1945, Millis, ed., The Forrestal Diaries, pp. 101-2; Tru­
man speech of October 27, 1945, Truman Public Papers: 1945, pp. 431—38.
The Impotence o f Omnipotence 275

Stettinius five days earlier, the President had observed that cooperation
with Moscow during the war had been based solely on military neces­
sity. Now, with victory achieved, “it was inevitable that we should have
real difficulties but we should not take them too seriously.” The break­
down of the London Conference had not upset Truman: “This was al­
most bound to happen at the end of the war . . . . It was perhaps better
to [have it] happen out in the open at this stage.” Serious differences
existed between Russia and the United States, but the President hoped
“that we could work them out amicably if we gave ourselves time.” The
United Nations could play an important role in this process, and so
could personal diplomacy. Stalin, Truman commented, was “a moderat­
ing influence in the present Russian government. . . . It would be a real
catastrophe if Stalin should die at the present time.” Truman believed
that the USSR, like the United States, was having serious postwar inter­
nal problems, and that “this might explain some of the things that they
had been doing.” 55
Byrnes, too, was having second thoughts about the tough policy he
had followed at the London Foreign Ministers’ Conference. Even before
departing for home, he had announced American willingness to recog­
nize the government of Hungary pending the holding of free elections,
and to consider Moscow’s request for establishment of an Allied Control
Council in Japan. He had heard criticism “from all sides” of Washing­
ton’s refusal to allow its allies to participate in the occupation of Japan,
he commented: “We were going off in a unilateral way as the Russians
were going off in the Balkans.” On October 9, shortly after arriving
back in Washington, the Secretary of State told Davies that the United
States had compromised on Poland, Finland, and Hungary, and would
try to do the same thing on Rumania and Bulgaria. The next day he an­
nounced the dispatch to those two countries of a delegation headed by
Mark Ethridge, publisher of the Louisville Courier-Journal, to check on
the accuracy of State Department reports regarding Russian activities.
The Secretary of State opposed Forrestal’s suggestion that Truman pub­
licly condemn Soviet policy, arguing that this would be an unnecessarily
provocative move, and viewed as “a revelation” news from Ambassador
Harriman late in October that Stalin really was upset over American
55 C. P. Noyes notes, Truman-Stettinius conversation, October 22, 1945, Stettinius
calendar notes, Stettinius MSS, Box 247.
276 The Impotence o f Omnipotence

policy in Japan. On October 31, four days after Truman's bellicose Navy
Day speech, the Secretary of State told a New York audience that while
the people of Eastern Europe should have the right to choose theif own
forms of government, the Soviet Union did have legitimate security in­
terests there. The United States, he promised, would never support anti-
Russian movements in that part of the world.56
Late in November, Byrnes proposed another meeting of the Big Three
foreign ministers, to take place in Moscow before Christmas. The Secre­
tary of State had found it difficult to press for more authority for
American representatives in Rumania and Bulgaria while denying Rus­
sian requests for a role in the occupation of Japan, and was now pre­
pared to arrange a compromise even over the objections of General Mac-
Arthur, the Supreme Allied Commander. Moreover, he realized that as
long as the Rumanian and Bulgarian peace treaties remained unsigned,
the Russians would have an excuse to keep troops in those countries.
Byrnes had also concluded that Molotov himself had caused many of the
procedural difficulties at London; by holding the new conference in Mos­
cow the Secretary of State hoped to de^l directly with Stalin, thus by­
passing the obstinate Soviet foreign minister. The American attitude on
the Balkans had not changed, Byrnes told British Foreign Secretary Er­
nest Bevin, but if the Russians agreed to talk about that issue “I should
think that that would be evidence of their willingness to reach some
compromise.” Bevin, who could be obstinate himself, objected strongly
to the proposed meeting and agreed to attend only after Byrnes threat­
ened to go to Moscow without him.57
The Secretary of State had also altered his tactics for dealing with
Moscow on the subject of atomic energy. Byrnes had originally planned
56Bohlen minutes, Byrnes-Molotov conversations, September 28 and 30, ISM5, FR:
1945, II, 437, 489; Stettinius calendar notes, September 28, 1945, Stettinius MSS, Box
247; Davies memorandum of conversation with Byrnes, October 9, 1945, Davies MSS,
Box 22; New York Times, October 11, 1945; Forrestal Diary, October 16, 1945, Mil-
lis, ed., The Forrestal Diaries, pp. 101—2; Byrnes, Speaking Frankly, p. 108; Byrnes
speech of October 31, 1945, Department o f State Bulletin, XIII (November 4,1945),
709—11. For Harriman's talks with Stalin about Japan, see Feis, Contest over Japan,
pp. 51—77. For the Ethridge Mission, see Mark Ethridge and C. E. Black, “Negotiat­
ing on the Balkans, 1945—1947/' in Dennett and Johnson, eds., Negotiating with the
Russians, pp. 184—203-
57Byrnes, All in One Lifetime, pp. 318—19; Byrnes, Speaking Frankly, pp. 108—9;
Byrnes to Bevin, November 27 and 29, 1945, FR: 1945, II, 582—83, 588—89- See
also Byrnes's memoranda of conversations with Lord Halifax, November 29, 1945,
and with Michael Wright, December 4, 1945, ibid,, pp. 590—91, 593—95.
The Im potence o f Omnipotence 111

to present the Truman-Attlee-King proposal for international control at

the first meeting of the United Nations General Assembly in January,
1946, without consulting the Russians in advance. But the atomic scien­
tists and several of their prominent supporters in Congress argued that
the matter should be discussed with the USSR prior to that time. Benja­
min V. Cohen and Leo Pasvolsky, two of Byrnes’s closest advisers, rec­
ommended a similar course of action, as did the British. Byrnes yielded
to these pressures and, on November 27, advised Bevin that the Moscow
negotiations would also deal with atomic energy. The Secretary of State
then organized a committee of advisers, headed by Cohen and Pasvolsky,
to decide what he should tell the Russians.58
The draft proposal which Byrnes’s advisers worked out adopted the
four basic steps toward international control mentioned in the Truman-
Attlee-King agreement. It differed significantly from that document,
however, by failing to make completion of one stage an absolute require­
ment for implementation of the next: “successful international action
with respect to any phase of the problem is not necessarily a prerequisite
for undertaking affirmative action with respect to other phases.” 59 This
change of wording was of great importance, for conceivably scientific
and technical information regarding atomic energy might now be ex­
changed prior to the establishment of foolproof safeguards. It is unclear
whether or not this modification represented an effort by State Depart­
ment officials to improve the chances of Russian acceptance. W hat is
clear, however, is that this new formula seriously undermined the accept­
ability of the proposal to the Congress of the United States.
On December 10, 1945, the Secretary of State called in key members
of the Senate Foreign Relations and Atomic Energy committees to brief
them on what he proposed to do at Moscow. The senators were still
58Cohen and Pasvolsky to Byrnes, November 24, 1945, cited in Hewlett and An­
derson, The New World, p. 470; Byrnes to Bevin, November 27, 1945, FR: 1945', II,
582—83. See also Byrnes's memorandum of a conversation with Lord Halifax, Novem­
ber 29, 1945, ibid., p. 590; and a British aide-mémoire of that date, ibid., pp. 77—78.
Byrnes had told a group of reporters on November 21 that he intended to go directly
to the General Assembly meeting in January without consulting the Russians in ad­
vance. (New York Times, November 22, 1945.) For the views of the atomic scientists
and their supporters in Congress, see ibid., November 17, ,1945; Hewlett and
Anderson, The New World, p. 470; and Smith, A Peril and a Hope, pp. 222—
24.
59"Draft Proposals on Atomic Energy for Submission to the Soviet Government,"
December 10, 1945, FR: 1945, II, 92-96.
278 The Impotence o f Omnipotence

angry over Byrnes's handling of the Truman-Attlee-King agreement and

resented his failure to seek their advice earlier— one senator com­
mented that the Foreign Relations Committee had been created to “con­
sult” with the Executive, not to be “informed” of what it had already de­
cided to do. But the senators' anger stemmed from more than this lapse
of protocol. They strongly criticized the State Department’s draft pro­
posal on atomic energy for leaving open the possibility of exchanging in­
formation before the institution of safeguards. Senator Vandenberg
warned that the Senate would oppose giving up any scientific data ‘‘un­
less and until the Soviets are prepared to be ‘policed' by UNO.” Any
other course of action would be “sheer appeasement.” Senator Connally
asked whether the Secretary of State had not reversed the proper order
of procedure— should he not seek safeguards before exchanging scien­
tific information? Upon learning that Byrnes had invited Dr. James B.
Conant to serve as a consultant on atomic energy at Moscow, the Texas
senator snorted irritably at the folly of entrusting such delicate missions
to “college professors.” Byrnes received this outburst of senatorial ire
without comment, and two days later left for the Soviet Union. Feeling
that they had made little impression on the Secretary of State, the sena­
tors asked for a meeting with the President himself.60
Truman met with Connally, Vandenberg, and their colleagues on De­
cember 14, 1945, two days after Byrnes's departure for Moscow. The
President appeared surprised to learn that the State Department's draft
proposals would permit the exchange of scientific and technical informa­
tion prior to the establishment of safeguards, but when the senators sug­
gested that Byrnes be instructed by radio to change his plan, Truman re­
mained noncommittal. Vandenberg noted that the senators had at least
made their protest: “We shall hold the Executive Department responsi­
ble. It is our unanimous opinion that the Byrnes formula must be
stopped” 61
60Vandenberg Diary, December 10, 1945, Vandenberg, ed., Private Papers, pp.
227—28; Connally and Steinberg, My Name Is Tom Connallyt pp. 289—90; New
York Times, December 20 and 29, 1945. As had been the case with the Truman-Att-
lee-King agreement, Byrnes’s tardiness in consulting the Senate resulted more from
his habit of leaving policy undecided until the latest possible moment than from a de­
sire to bypass Capitol Hill. Conant’s appointment was also a last-minute affair; see his
My Several Lives, pp. 476—77.
61Vandenberg Diary, December 11, 1945 [misdated], Vandenberg, ed., Private Pa­
pers, p. 229.
The Im potence o f Omnipotence 279

But the President did not ignore the senators' criticisms. He quickly
ordered Acting Secretary of State Acheson, who had attended the meet­
ing, to cable a full account of it to Byrnes in Moscow. On December 17,
the Secretary of State replied, maintaining that he had never intended to
make possible the exchange of information without safeguards, and
promising to follow the more strictly worded formula of the Truman-
Attlee-King agreement. When news of the senators' confrontations with
Truman and Byrnes leaked to the press on December 20, the President,
now reassured, sent the Secretary of State an expression of confidence.62
Surprisingly enough, Byrnes had less trouble winning Russian accept­
ance of the American plan for a United Nations Atomic Energy Com­
mission than he did in securing congressional approval. The Russians
showed little apparent interest in the question at Moscow, and aside
from asking that the commission report to the Security Council instead
of to the General Assembly, suggested no changes in the American plan.
The conferees agreed that the commission would, by separate stages,
make proposals to exchange basic scientific information, limit the use of
atomic and other weapons of mass destruction, and set up effective safe­
guards. Repeating the Truman-Attlee-King formula, the agreement pro­
vided that “the work of the Commission should proceed by separate
stages, the successful completion of each of which will develop the neces­
sary confidence of the world before the next stage is undertaken.''63
Byrnes's chief objective at Moscow was to resolve the impasse over
Rumania and Bulgaria, so that work on peace treaties with Germany's
former satellites could begin. The Ethridge report, presented to Byrnes
on December 7, 1945, offered little reason for optimism. It stated
frankly that “constant and vigorous intrusion [by the Russians] into the
62 Acheson to Byrnes, December 15, 1945, FR: 1945, II, 609—10; Byrnes to Ache-
son, December 17, 1945, ibid., p. 609»/ Acheson to Byrnes, December 21, 1945,
ibid., pp. 709—10; New York Times, December 20, 1945.
63 Moscow Conference communiqué, December 27, 1945, FR: 1945, II, 822—24. A
convenient summary of the negotiations on atomic energy at Moscow is in Hewlett
and Anderson, The New World, pp. 475—76. Molotov seemed determined to mini­
mize the importance of the bomb during the Moscow negotiations. He requested that
the subject be moved from first to last place on the conference agenda, and took con­
siderable delight in asking Conant whether he had an atomic bomb in his pocket. Sta­
lin chided his foreign minister for his flippant attitude, however, and congratulated the
American scientists on their “great invention.” (Conant, My Several Lives, pp.
482—83; Byrnes, All in One Lifetime, pp. 336—37.)
280 The Impotence o f Omnipotence

internal affairs of these countries is so obvious to an impartial observer

that Soviet denial of its existence can only be regarded as a reflection of
the party line.” The report noted that, according to present American
policy, peace could come only if representative governments existed
throughout Europe. To concede the Soviets a sphere of influence in East­
ern Europe would only be to invite its extension. Unless the United
States was prepared to abandon the Yalta Declaration on Liberated Eu­
rope, it should take steps to ensure its implementation. By the time the
report reached him, however, Byrnes had decided to make another at­
tempt at compromise with the Russians. For this reason he circulated the
report privately, but refused to allow its publication.64
At Moscow, Byrnes and Molotov had no more luck in reaching an ac­
cord on Eastern Europe than they had had at London three months ear­
lier. But the Secretary of State placed his main hope on a direct appeal
to Stalin, and at his first meeting with the Russian leader on December
23 he secured the concessions he wanted. Stalin emphasized the Soviet
Union's determination to have only friendly governments along its bor­
ders. He then conceded, however, that “perhaps the Bulgarian parlia­
ment could be advised to include some members of the loyal opposition
in the new Government” and that “in the case of Rumania . . . it might
be possible to make some changes . . . which would satisfy Mr. Byrnes.”
Byrnes jumped at the opportunity and rapidly worked out with Stalin an
agreement calling for a three-power commission to go to Rumania and
advise the government to take in two additional ministers. The Soviet
government would itself propose a slight broadening of the Bulgarian
regime.65
Stalin's concessions did nothing to weaken Russian influence in East­
ern Europe— George F. Kennan aptly described them as “fig leaves of
democratic procedure to hide the nakedness of Stalinist dictatorship.” 66
64 “Summary Report on Soviet Policy in Rumania and Bulgaria,“ December 7,
1945, FR: 1945, V, 633—37; Ethridge and Black, “Negotiating on the Balkans,” pp.
200 - 2 .
65Record of the Byrnes-Stalin meeting of December 23, 1945, FR: 1945, II,
752—56. During this conversation Byrnes mentioned the Ethridge report, announcing
that he might have to publish it if no accord was reached on Rumania and Bulgaria.
Stalin replied that if this happened he would ask a Soviet journalist, Ilya Ehrenburg,
to report publicly on conditions in those two countries. The Soviet leader assured
Byrnes that Ehrenburg would be as “impartial“ as Ethridge had been.
66Kennan, Memoirs, p. 284.
The Im potence o f Om nipotence 281

But the concessions had great symbolic importance for Byrnes. He could
now say that the Russians had at least genuflected before the Yalta Dec­
laration on Liberated Europe by agreeing to make the governments of
Rumania and Bulgaria more representative, in much the same way that
Stalin had bowed in the direction of the Yalta Polish agreement in May
by agreeing to a token broadening of the Warsaw government. This
would make it possible for Byrnes to justify extending diplomatic recog­
nition to Rumania and Bulgaria, and to conclude peace treaties with
them.
In return, the Secretary of State agreed to make token concessions on
the issue of Japan. The United States would establish an “Allied Coun­
cil,” made up of representatives of the United States, the British Com­
monwealth, China, and the Soviet Union, which would consult with and
advise General MacArthur on occupation measures. But this body was in
no way comparable to the Allied Control Council in Germany—
MacArthur was obliged to take its advice only if the “exigencies of the
situation” permitted. The General himself was to decide when they did
and when they did not. Just as the agreement on Eastern Europe al­
lowed the Americans to save face while tacitly acknowledging Soviet
control, so the Far Eastern accord allowed the Russians a token role in
the occupation of Japan without in fact impairing American authority.67
The Moscow agreement indicated clearly that Byrnes had abandoned
“atomic diplomacy.” In order to secure any kind of agreement at all
from the Russians, the Secretary of State had been forced to fall back
upon the quid pro quo negotiating tactics he had employed at Potsdam.
But the situation had changed profoundly since the summer of 1945:
the critical manner in which leading Republicans and Democrats, as
well as Truman himself, greeted Byrnes’s efforts at Moscow indicated
that compromise with the Soviet Union was no longer politically feasi­
ble. As a result, the United States government moved, during the first
three months of 1946, into a fundamental reorientation of policy toward
the Soviet Union.
67 Moscow Conference communiqué, December 27, 1945, FR: 1945, II, 819. See
also Feis, Contest over Japan, pp. 103—4.
 9
Getting Tougk with Russia:
The Reorientation of
American Policy, 1946

Byrnes felt that he had achieved much at Moscow. The Russians ac­
cepted his plan for a general peace conference and his list of states to be
invited. The compromise arrangement on Rumania and Bulgaria,
though vague, at least committed the Soviet Union on paper to the prin­
ciple of self-determination. Stalin agreed to token participation in the oc­
cupation of Japan without challenging American control of that enter­
prise, and reiterated his recognition of Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalist
government in China, a gesture which seemed especially significant just
as General George C. Marshall was embarking on his mission to try to
end the civil war there. Much to Byrnes’s surprise, the Russians accepted
without significant modification the American plan for a United Nations
Atomic Energy Commission which would begin work on international
control. The foreign ministers failed to reach agreement only on the
question of when the Russians would withdraw their troops from north­
ern Iran, which they had occupied during the war. Consequently, the
Secretary of State returned to the United States “far happier’’ with the
G etting Tough w ith Russia 283

results of this meeting than with the outcome of the London Conference
fifteen weeks earlier.1
But though the initial editorial reaction to Moscow was generally
friendly, Byrnes quickly found himself under attack from leading Repub­
licans and several of his own colleagues in the Truman Administration.
Russian behavior over the past year had gradually convinced many
Washington officials that Stalin had no interest in self-determination,
the revival of world trade, or collective security. Only by negotiating
with the Soviet Union from a position of strength, they felt, could the
United States obtain the kind of peace settlement it wanted. Byrnes’s re­
fusal to compromise at London had pleased American advocates of a
tough line, but they worried that at Moscow he had made concessions
which the Russians could only interpret as a sign of weakness. Why,
they asked, should the United States, sole possessor of the atomic bomb,
continue to appease Moscow? 2
This divergence over policy developed because of poor communication
between the State Department, the White House, the Capitol Hill.
Byrnes, overconfident of his abilities as a negotiator, had switched
abruptly to more conciliatory tactics after the failure of the London Con­
ference without giving congressional leaders or the President a clear idea
of his intentions. Up to this point Truman, preoccupied with domestic
problems, had allowed his secretary of state a free hand. But dissatisfac­
tion with Byrnes’s performance at Moscow forced the President to reas­
sert his authority in the field of foreign affairs. Simultaneously, Republi­
can leaders made it clear that any further compromises with the Soviet
Union would cause them to launch a public attack on Administration
policy. Byrnes, slowly realizing how far he had strayed from the prevail­
ing mood in Washington, moved early in 1946 to repair his relations
with the White House, Congress, and leading Republicans by reverting
to a firmer position in his dealings with the Russians.
Confusion over Soviet intentions also contributed to the Truman Ad-
1Byrnes, Speaking Frankly, pp. 121—22. See also the Washington Post, December
26 and 28, 1945; and the Davies Diary, January 4, 1946, Davies MSS, Box 22.
2 Newsweek, XXVII (January 7, 1946), 29; Time, XLVII (January 7, 1946),
19—20; Davies Diary, December 31, 1945, Davies MSS, Box 22. See also Byrnes, All
in One Lifetime, p. 317; and the Department of State, “Fortnightly Survey of Ameri­
can Opinion,” No. 42, January 8, 1946.
284 G etting Tough w ith Russia

ministration's vacillating foreign policy. W ithout a convincing explana­

tion of the motives underlying Russian behavior, Washington officials
found it difficult to decide upon a consistent plan of action.3 If Kremlin
leaders were chiefly interested in guaranteeing Soviet security, opportuni­
ties still existed to resolve outstanding disputes. Truman had been oper­
ating on this assumption when he met Stalin at Potsdam, and Byrnes ap­
parently adhered to it as late as December, 1945, in his talks with the
Russians at Moscow. But other American officials were coming to feel
that they had misjudged the Kremlin’s policy: Soviet actions in Eastern
Europe in 1945, together with the change in tactics by the international
communist movement, convinced them that Moscow had embarked on a
program of unlimited expansion which threatened the very survival of
the United States and its Western allies. A series of alarming develop­
ments in February, 1946, lent credence to this view, as did a persuasive
analysis of the relationship between ideology and Soviet diplomacy by
George F. Kennan, the American chargé d’affaires in Moscow.
The convergence of these external and internal trends in late Febru­
ary and early March, 1946, produced a fundamental reorientation of
United States policy toward the Soviet Union. Up to this time the Tru­
man Administration, despite occasional outbursts of angry rhetoric, was
still trying to resolve differences with Moscow through negotiation and
compromise. In March, 1946, however, Administration officials began
bringing their diplomacy into line with their rhetoric. From this time on
American policy-makers regarded the Soviet Union not as an estranged
ally but as a potential enemy, whose vital interests could not be recog­
nized without endangering those of the United States. Truman and his
advisers continued diplomatic contacts with the Russians, but they firmly
resolved to offer no further concessions of the kind Byrnes had made at
Moscow. The Secretary of State himself accurately described the new
policy as one of “patience with firmness”; 4 in time it would come to be
known by a less precise but more ominous term— “containment.”
3On this point, see Joseph and Stewart Alsop, “We Have No Russian Policy/'
Washington Post, January 4, 1946.
4Curry, Byrnes, p. 210.
G etting Tough w ith Russia 285

Truman’s dissatisfaction with Byrnes’s conduct of foreign policy had

been growing for several months. Part of the difficulty was personal. Ac­
cording to one observer, Byrnes resented having been denied the Demo­
cratic vice-presidential nomination in 1944, and felt himself better qual­
ified to occupy the White House than Truman. The President himself
later acknowledged that he had chosen Byrnes to be secretary of state
partly out of a sense of guilt over the 1944 episode. Whatever the reason
for his appointment, Byrnes had clearly intended to be a strong secretary
of state. As mobilization and reconversion director under Roosevelt, he
had enjoyed virtually complete autonomy in organizing the wartime
economy. This exceptional delegation of power, Truman believed, caused
Byrnes to think that as secretary of state he could have a free hand in
running foreign policy.5
During his first months in office, the Secretary of State showed an al­
most ostentatious desire to act as an independent agent. At the London
Conference of Foreign Ministers, he refused to report back to the State
Department. “Hell,” he told the secretary of the American delegation, “I
may tell the President sometime what happened, but I’m never going to
tell the State Department about it.” At the Moscow Conference in De­
cember, Byrnes remarked to Ambassador Harriman that he did not in­
tend to send daily reports to Washington: “I don’t trust the White
House. It leaks. And I don’t want any of this coming out in the papers
until I get home.” Byrnes did send Truman one direct dispatch from
Moscow describing the progress of the meeting, but it gave the President
little information he did not already have from the newspapers. Truman
considered this an inadequate account from a cabinet member to the
Chief Executive: “It was more like one partner in business telling the
other that his business trip was progressing well and not to worry.” 6
5Daniels, Man o f Independence, p. 308; Truman, Year o f Decisions, pp. 546—47.
See also Acheson, Present at the Creation, pp. 136—37.
6 Interview with Theodore C. Achilles, Dulles Oral History Project; Cabell Phillips
interview with Harriman, quoted in Phillips, The Truman Presidency, p. 148; Byrnes
to Truman, December 24, 1945, PR: 1945, II, 760; Truman, Year o f Decisions, p.
286 G etting Tough w ith Russia

Byrnes's reputation as a compromiser also caused alarm among Ad­

ministration advisers. Senator Tom Connally viewed his appointment as
secretary of state with considerable skepticism because he felt that the
South Carolinian was “devoted to expediency." The publisher of the
Army-Navy Journal warned Truman's press secretary in December that
Byrnes, overly anxious to reach agreements with the Russians, might
make concessions of which the American people would not apptove.
Harriman developed strong doubts about Byrnes after the London Con­
ference, and resolved never to accept another diplomatic post under him.
Kennan, Harriman's counselor in the Soviet Union, observed Byrnes
closely at Moscow and concluded that he had no fixed objectives: “His
main purpose is to achieve some sort of an agreement, he doesn't much
care what. The realities behind this agreement, since they concern only
such people as Koreans, Rumanians, and Iranians, about whom he
knows nothing, do not concern him. He wants an agreement for its po­
litical effect at home." When the Moscow decisions were announced, the
United States mission staff in Rumania regarded them as a “sell-out,"
and for a time considered resigning en masse. The American ambassador
in Italy, Alexander Kirk, told C. L. Sulzberger in the spring of 1946
that Byrnes was “awful" and had “given far too much away to the
Russians." *7
Admiral William D. Leahy, the crusty Chief of Staff to the Com­
mander in Chief, criticized Byrnes with particular vehemence. One of
the first of Truman's advisers to advocate a tough policy toward the So­
viet Union, Leahy by the end of 1945 had come to regard almost any­
one who would consider agreement with the Russians as an appeaser.
Byrnes's efforts to settle the Chinese civil war by encouraging Chiang
Kai-shek to bring communists into his government caused Leahy to
wonder, in the privacy of his diary, whether the Secretary of State might
not be under the influence of “communist” elements in the State Depart-
549. On Byrnes’s administrative methods, see also Acheson, Present at the Creation, p.
163; The Journals o f David E. Lilienthal, II, 159; and Feis, Contest over Japan, pp.
124—26.
7 Connally and Steinberg, My Name Is Tom Connally, p. 289; John C. O’Laughlin
to Charles G. Ross, December 18, 1945, Truman MSS, OF 386; Kennan Diary. De­
cember 19, 1945, quoted in Kennan, Memoirs, pp. 287—88. See also the Sulzberger
Diary, January 24, 26, April 22, 1946, quoted in Sulzberger, A Long Row o f Candles,
pp. 292-93, 311.
G etting Tough w ith Russia 287

ment. The Moscow agreement seemed to confirm his suspicions: both

the State Department and the new Labor government in Britain, he
wrote, were bowing before Russian demands in a manner resembling
what Chamberlain had done at Munich.8
Truman himself had expressed concern over his secretary of state's at­
titude shortly before Byrnes left for Moscow. He was fond of Byrnes, the
President told Joseph E. Davies, a mutual friend, but Byrnes was a “con-
niver.” Truman expected to have to do some “conniving” himself “to get
the boat steady.” Davies attributed Truman's displeasure with Byrnes
partly to the Secretary of State's carelessness about keeping the President
informed, partly to indications that “someone had been needling him
against Byrnes.” At Truman's request, Davies saw Byrnes on December
11, but apparently failed to convey to the Secretary a full expression of
the President's mood.9
Byrnes's decision to release the Moscow Conference communiqué be­
fore consulting the White House further irritated Truman, who awaited
the Secretary's return from the Soviet Union in an angry mood. Upon
landing in Washington on December 29, 1945, Byrnes instructed the
State Department to arrange for a radio report to the nation. At the
same time he asked the White House for an appointment with the Presi­
dent. Truman replied pointedly through his press secretary that Byrnes
should see the Chief Executive before reporting to the nation. Accord­
ingly, Byrnes met Truman that evening on the presidential yacht Wil­
liamsburg. Recollections differ as to precisely what took place. Truman
recalled that he took Byrnes into a stateroom and complained about the
Secretary's inadequate reporting of developments in Moscow. “I said it
was shocking that a communique should be issued in Washington an­
nouncing a foreign-policy development of major importance that I had
never heard of. I said I would not tolerate a repetition of such conduct.”
Byrnes himself, however, remembered receiving criticism only from
Admiral Leahy, not Truman. George Allen, director of the Reconstruc-
8Curry, Byrnes, p. 342; Leahy Diary, November 28, December 11, 26, 28, 1943,
January 1, 1946, Leahy MSS. There is some evidence that Leahy deliberately leaked
information critical of Byrnes to certain favored newspaper columnists. See the Davies
Journal, January 28, February 5, 1946, Davies MSS; and Tristam Coffin, Missouri
Compromise, pp. 40—41.
9 Davies Journal, December 8 and 11, 1945, Davies MSS, Box 22. See also Mur­
phy, Diplomat among Warriors, pp. 300—1.
288 G etting Tough w ith Russia

tion Finance Corporation, was present on board the Williamsburg and

recalled no evident bitterness between Truman and Byrnes. Allen did re­
ceive the clear impression, however, that Truman had decided “to put an
end to the holdover policy of Russian appeasement.” Another guest on
the Williamsburg, Clark Clifford, remembered no particular hostility be­
tween the President and the Secretary of State but noted that “all
through dinner Leahy, in a really effective and gentle manner to which
Byrnes could not take exception, had the needle in him.” Leahy himself
recorded in his diary that he asked Byrnes repeatedly what benefits the
United States got out of the Moscow agreement, but that Byrnes had
been unable to tell him. Truman had shown great dissatisfaction with
Byrnes before his arrival on the yacht, Leahy observed, but the Secretary
of State had apparently managed for the time being to soothe the Chief
Executive.10
Whatever Truman told Byrnes on board the Williamsburg, there is
no doubt that the President disliked the Moscow agreement. As he went
over the conference documents Byrnes had left with him, Truman later
wrote, “it became abundantly clear to me that the successes of the Mos­
cow conference were unreal.” The President particularly objected to
Byrnes's failure to secure concessions from the Russians on the interna­
tional control of atomic energy and on the withdrawal of Russian troops
from Iran. Truman brooded over these developments for a week, and
then on January 5, 1946, called Byrnes to the White House for a repri­
mand. Reading from a memorandum written out in longhand, Truman
told the Secretary of State that although he would like to delegate as
much authority as possible to cabinet members, he did not intend to ab­
dicate his right as President to make final decisions. For this reason, it
was vital for Byrnes to keep the President constantly informed as to the
course of diplomatic negotiations.
The President then launched into a violent attack on Russian policy.
He had only that morning read the Ethridge report on conditions in Ru­
mania and Bulgaria, and was determined not to recognize these two
governments until their composition had been radically changed. He
called for a vigorous American protest against Russian actions in Iran,
10 Byrnes, All in One Lifetime, pp. 342—43; Truman, Year o f Decisions, p. 550;
Jonathan Daniels interviews with George Allen and Clark Clifford, cited in Daniels,
Man o f Independence, pp. 309—11; Leahy Diary, December 29, 1945, Leahy MSS. See
also Acheson, Present at the Creation, p. 136. For the Moscow Conference commu­
niqué, see the Department o f State Bulletin, XIII (December 30, 1945), 1027—32.
G ettin g Tough w ith Russia 289

which were “an outrage if I ever saw one.” He charged that the Rus­
sians intended to invade Turkey and seize the Black Sea Straits. Truman
did not think the United States should “play” at compromise any longer:
“Unless Russia is faced with an iron fist and strong language another
war is in the making. Only one language do they understand— ‘how
many divisions have you?*. . . Tm tired of babying the Soviets.” 11
Truman’s outburst at Byrnes stemmed from more than bruised pride
over the Secretary’s failure to consult him. It indicated clearly the Presi­
dent’s growing determination to put into effect a firmer policy toward
the Soviet Union. An arrangement whereby the Russians would convey
the appearance of self-determination within their sphere of influence had
seemed acceptable enough in Poland in May of 1945, but by December,
when Byrnes agreed to similar compromises in Rumania and Bulgaria,
public trust in Russian intentions had badly eroded. Opinion polls
showed that at the time of Japan’s surrender, 54 percent of a national
sample had been willing to trust the Russians to cooperate with the
United States in the postwar world. Two months later, following the
failure of the London Conference, this figure had dropped to 44 percent.
By the end of February, 1946, it would stand at 35 percent.12
For a man of his long experience in domestic affairs, Byrnes seemed
oddly unaware of this progressive deterioration of faith in the good in­
tentions of the Soviet Union. The praise he won for his firm stand at
London apparently surprised him, as did the criticism he incurred for his
compromises at Moscow.13 Truman, however, fully realized the impor­
tance of this gradual shift in opinion, especially in view of increasingly
ominous indications that Republicans might try to capitalize on it in the
1946 congressional elections. The wartime policy of conceding whatever
11Truman memorandum for conversation with Byrnes, January 5, 1946, Truman,
Year o f Decisions, pp. 551—52. Byrnes denied ever having read or listened to this
memorandum. George Curry, Byrnes’s biographer, suggests that Truman did not ac­
tually read the memorandum to Byrnes, but sought to express his concern in a less
forceful manner. Byrnes himself did not take it as a reprimand, and claims that if he
had read the document he would have resigned on the spot. (Curry, Byrnes, pp.
189-90.)
12American Institute of Public Opinion polls of August 8, October 17, 1945, and
February 27, 1946, cited in Cantril and Strunk, eds., Public Opinion, p. 371. In each
of these national samples, between 13 and 16 percent of those polled were undecided
as to whether Russian cooperation could be expected.
13Byrnes, All in One Lifetime, p. 317; memorandum of a conversation between
Byrnes and Georges Bidault, May 1, 1946, FR: 1946, II, 204.
290 G etting Tough w ith Russia

was necessary to reach agreement with the Russians was no longer polit­
ically feasible; the President made it clear that the Secretary of State
would have to accustom himself to a less conciliatory approach.

II
Between September of 1945 and March of 1946 Republican criticism of
Administration diplomacy reached its greatest intensity since before
Pearl Harbor. The bipartisan foreign policy which Roosevelt and Hull
had so painstakingly constructed now seemed to be falling apart. Secre­
tary of State Byrnes, who strongly supported bipartisanship, found him­
self under increasingly violent attack from prominent Republicans who
had grown disenchanted with his Russian policy. Byrnes eventually suc­
ceeded in placating these Republican critics, just as he placated Truman
and his other critics within the Administration. To do this, however, the
Secretary had to repress his strong inclination to deal with the Kremlin
in the same way that he had dealt with the United States Congress—
by practicing the politics of compromise.
Initial indications of G.O.P. dissatisfaction came in October, 1945,
when James Reston reported that “leading members of the Republican
Party” resented Byrnes's failure to ask their advice before formulating
diplomatic policy. Reston’s story left little doubt that one of the party
leaders to whom he referred was John Foster Dulles, the unofficial Re­
publican spokesman on foreign affairs. In an effort to bolster bipartisan­
ship, Byrnes had invited Dulles to serve on the American delegation to
the London Foreign Ministers' Conference. The Secretary of State sought
no suggestions in advance of the meeting, however, leading Dulles to
conclude that his only function had been to place a Republican stamp of
approval on policies already decided upon by the Administration. Dulles
also objected to Byrnes's penchant for compromise and, according to the
testimony of at least two observers, threatened to lead the Republican
Party in a public attack on the Secretary of State if he yielded to Soviet
demands.14
14 New York Times, October 9, 1945; interviews with Carl W. McCardle and
Theodore C. Achilles, Dulles Oral History Project. See also John Foster Dulles, War
or Peace, pp. 29—30. In a conversation with Stettinius on October 1, 1945, Dulles
said that he was “discouraged and unhappy” about the way the foreign ministers’
G etting Tough w ith Russia 291

During the following months prominent G.O.P. leaders criticized Ad­

ministration policy with increasing frequency. The Republican members
of Congress issued a statement on December 5, 1945, calling for greater
efforts to fulfill wartime pledges to small nations. Governor Dwight
Green of Illinois told the Republican National Committee that the
party should not hesitate to protest the “shameful betrayal of Poland.”
Senator Homer Capehart of Indiana grumbled that Byrnes’s concessions
at Moscow reminded him “of Chamberlain and his umbrella appease­
ment of Hitler.” In January, 1946, House Minority Leader Joseph W.
Martin proclaimed Republican opposition to “any betrayal of the small
nations of the world in the making of the peace.” 15
The views of Senator Arthur H. Vandenburg of Michigan would,
more than those of any other individual, determine the Republican posi­
tion on policy toward the Soviet Union. Early in 1945 Vandenburg had
strongly criticized the Yalta accords on Eastern Europe, but after Presi­
dent Roosevelt sent him to the San Francisco Conference, he formed a
close working relationship with Secretary of State Stettinius and played
a vital role in rallying Senate support for the United Nations Charter.
Truman’s decision to replace Stettinius with Byrnes threatened to undo
the Administration’s close ties with Vandenburg. The Michigan senator
distrusted Byrnes because “his whole life has been a career of compro­
mise.” The South Carolinian had gained his great influence in the Senate
and later with Roosevelt through his ability to conciliate, but Vanden-
berg’s experience at San Francisco had taught him that the only way to
deal with the Russians was to be firm and unyielding. Accordingly, as
Arthur H. Vandenberg, Jr., observed, “the very quality for which Byrnes
had been best known in the Senate was the one that Vandenberg feared
might be Byrnes’s undoing in the international political field.” 16
meeting had gone. While he expressed no direct criticism of Byrnes, Dulles did say
that the Secretary of State was “extremely nervous, . . . tired out and exhausted, and
facing this failure of his first mission on his own was getting under his skin/’ Dulles
then praised the “nerve and guts” Stettinius had shoyrn at San Francisco by risking a
breakup of the conference rather than give in to Russian demands, and said that he
was still telling all the Republicans about it. (Stettinius calendar notes, October 1,
1945, Stettinius MSS, Box 247.)
15 New York Times, December 6, 1945; Newsweek, XXVI (December 17, 1945),
36; Washington Post, December 29, 1945; New Republic, CXIV (February 11,
1946), 172.
16 Vandenberg to Mrs. Vandenberg, undated, Vandenberg, ed., Private Papers, p.
225; ibid., p. 243.
292 G etting Tough w ith Russia

Vandenberg also distrusted Byrnes because the new Secretary of State

refused to ask his advice on foreign policy. Dean Acheson, who under­
stood the Michigan senator well, observed that one could get Vanden­
berg to agree to almost anything provided only that one patiently con­
sulted with him in advance. Byrnes’s reluctance to perform this civility
got him into as much trouble with Vandenberg as it did with Truman.
The Secretary of State chose Dulles instead of Vandenberg to represent
the Republican Party at London. Even worse, he repeatedly failed to
seek the counsel of Vandenberg and other senators while formulating
policy on the international control of atomic energy, a matter about
which Vandenberg felt strongly. Consequently, the Michigan senator
began the year 1946, in the words of his son and confidant, “with deep
reservations . . . regarding the consistency and clear-sighted self-interest
of our policy as practiced by Byrnes.” 17
In December of 1945, Truman asked both Vandenberg and Dulles to
represent the Republican Party at the first meeting of the United Na­
tions General Assembly, which was to take place in London the follow­
ing month. Vandenberg wrote to Dulles that he did not want to go to
London, but, he conceded, “it may be my duty to go along.” Dubious
about his ability to work with Byrnes, the Michigan senator reserved his
right to resign from the delegation if he disagreed with the Administra­
tion’s proposals on the international control of atomic energy. Privately
he let it be known that he would come home sooner than anyone ex­
pected “if at London I collide with a Truman-Byrnes appeasement policy
which I cannot stomach.” 18
Vandenberg did come close to resigning when he read the agreement
on international control which Byrnes had made at Moscow. He ex­
plained to Senator Brien McMahon, a fellow member of the Senate
Atomic Energy Committee:
It listed four stages for the work of the UNO Commission— “disclosures”
FIRST and total “security” LAST. Then it said that “the work of the Com-
17Dean Acheson, Sketches from Life o f Men I have Known, pp. 126—27; Vanden­
berg, ed., Private Papers, p. 237. Byrnes has said that he selected Dulles to go to Lon­
don instead of Vandenberg because Dulles “had not been active in partisan politics.“
(Interview with James F. Byrnes, Dulles Oral History Project.) For Vandenberg’s criti­
cisms of Byrnes's policy on the international control of atomic energy, see chapter 8.
18Vandenberg to Dulles, December 19, 1945, and Truman, December 21, 1945,
Vandenberg, ed.. Private Papers, pp. 230, 232; Vandenberg to John W. Blodgett, De­
cember 24, 1945, Vandenberg MSS.
G ettin g Tough w ith Russia 293

mission should proceed by separate stages” and that each “stage” should be
completed before the next is undertaken. It seemed to me that this could be
read in no other way than that the precise thing is to happen against which
both our Committee and the Foreign Relations Committee is so earnestly op­
posed. I felt that I had no right to go to London, as a Senate spokesman,
under any such instructions to promote any such objectives.
To another friend, Vandenberg described the Moscow communiqué as
“one more typical American ‘give away* on this subject.” The senator
communicated his displeasure to Acting Secretary of State Acheson, who
quickly set up an appointment with the President on December 28.19
Truman and Acheson assured Vandenberg that the Moscow statement
meant that adequate security arrangements would accompany each stage
in the establishment of international control. With Truman's approval,
Vandenberg issued a public statement making this point clear. These re­
assurances made it possible for the Michigan senator to accompany the
American delegation to London: “Indeed,” he wrote Senator McMahon,
“the circumstances now probably demand that I go.” Since a literal read­
ing of the Moscow communiqué would not include Truman's qualifica­
tions, it was vital, in Vandenberg’s view, that this document not be
made the basis of the proposal to be presented to the General Assem­
bly.20
At London, both Vandenberg and Dulles worried over the Secretary
of State's apparent willingness to conciliate the Russians and exerted
pressure on him to take harder positions. Vandenberg told Newsweek
correspondent Edward Weintal: “Thank heavens that Jimmy Byrnes
hates disagreements, because I don't know where I would be if he de­
cided to continue this fight.” Newsweek later reported Vandenberg's fear
that the Secretary of State “might be tempted to yield on vital issues for
harmony's sake.” Eleanor Roosevelt, another American representative at
London, wrote privately that “Secy. Byrnes is afraid of his own delega­
tion.” Byrnes returned from London deeply apprehensive about the fu­
ture of bipartisanship. Dulles, he charged, had leaked to reporters the
fact that there had been disagreement among the United States dele­
gates. Vandenberg was upset over accusations from fellow Republicans
19 Vandenberg to McMahon, January 2, 1946, and C. E. Hutchinson, December 29,
1945, Vandenberg MSS.
20 New York Times, December 29, 1945; Leahy Diary, December 28, 1945, Leahy
MSS; Vandenberg to McMahon, January 2, 1946, Vandenberg MSS.
294 G etting Tough w ith Russia

that he had become an “appeaser” by working with Byrnes, and was also
looking for a way out of bipartisan cooperation. “The fact had to be
faced,” the Secretary of State told his colleagues in the cabinet, "that
Vandenberg’s— and for that matter Dulles’s— activities from now
on could be viewed as being conducted on a political and partisan
basis.” 21
Public statements which Dulles and Vandenberg made on their return
from London gave Byrnes ample cause for concern. While Vandenberg
expressed optimism regarding the new world organizations prospects, he
criticized the timidity of American policy:
The United States must not be a silent partner in this cooperative enterprise.
It is our right and it is our duty to speak in these councils just as firmly and
just as earnestly for ideals of justice and the fundamentals of freedom as it is
for others in the UNO to assert their viewpoints. I hope to see the Govern­
ment of the United States more firmly assert its moral leadership in these re­
spects.
Stettinius later explained to Cordell Hull that “Van is pretty sore on not
being taken into camp a little bit more, not only in London but in
Washington too. He and Jimmy [Byrnes] are not getting on at all well.
. . . Van . . . says collaboration at the present time is just being told
about it the night before it goes into the newspaper.” Dulles, in speeches
at Princeton University and before the Foreign Policy Association in
New York, complained that the Administration had chosen its delega­
tion at the last minute and had given it no meaningful tasks to perform.
Future delegations should be allowed time to develop policies which
would be “realistic and significant and expressive of the righteous faith
of the best of America.” Newsweek reported late in February that both
Vandenberg and Dulles were angry at Byrnes and might refuse to serve
on any more delegations with him.22
James Reston, who had called attention to Republican discontent
with Administration foreign policy in the fall of 1945, found it even
21 Interview with Edward Weintal, Dulles Oral History Project; Newsweek, XXVII
(January 21, 1946), 39—40; Eleanor Roosevelt to Bernard Baruch, January 16, 1946,
Baruch MSS, “Selected Correspondence’*; Forrestal Diary, January 29, 1946, Millis,
ed., The Forrestal Diaries, p. 132. See also the Stettinius calendar notes, January 7,
1946, Stettinius MSS, Box 247.
22 New York Times, February 17, 23, March 2, 1946; Stettinius calendar notes,
March 1, 1946, Stettinius MSS, Box 247; Newsweek, XXVII (March 11, 1946), 19.
G etting Tough w ith Russia 295

greater after the London United Nations meeting. Republicans objected,

he noted, to Administration insistence that members of the American
delegation carry out State Department policies, even though they had
not been consulted on them in advance. But G.O.P. dissatisfaction grew
out of substantive as well as procedural considerations: “Republicans
seem to favor a bolder and what they believe would be a much more
forthright policy of leadership in world affairs than the Administration
is now following.“ The 1946 congressional elections were approaching.
Republican leaders, scenting victory, had no desire to associate them­
selves with a policy of “appeasement” which might hurt them at the
polls.23
Republican criticism reached a climax on February 27, 1946, when
Vandenberg rose on the floor of the Senate to express his feelings.
“W hat is Russia up to now?” he demanded:
We ask it in Manchuria. We ask it in Eastern Europe and the Dardanelles.
. . . We ask it in the Baltic and the Balkans. We ask it in Poland. . . . We
ask it in Japan. We ask it sometimes even in connection with events in our
own United States. What is Russia up to now?
Vandenberg asserted that two rival ideologies, democracy and commu­
nism, now found themselves face to face. They could live together in
harmony, but only
if the United States speaks as plainly upon all occasions as Russia does; if
the United States just as vigorously sustains its own purposes and its ideals
upon all occasions as Russia does; if we abandon this miserable fiction, often
encouraged by our own fellow-travellers, that we somehow jeopardize the
peace if our candor is as firm as Russia's always is; and if we assume a moral
leadership which we have too frequently allowed to lapse.
The United States should draw a line, Vandenberg proclaimed, beyond
which it would not compromise. Then it should make clear, through
plain speaking, precisely where that line lay. “Where is right? Where is
justice? There let America take her stand.”
The Michigan senator praised the “sterling services” at London of his
Democratic counterpart, Senator Connally, the "distinguished” conduct
of the new American ambassador to the United Nations, Stettinius, the
“sturdy” manner of British Foreign Secretary Bevin, the “able” perform-
23 New York Times, February 26, 1946.
296 G etting Tough w ith Russia

ance of French Foreign Minister Georges Bidault, and even the “bril­
liant” Soviet representative, Andrei Vishinsky, “one of the ablest states­
men I have ever seen in action.” But he pointedly avoided any praise for
Secretary of State Byrnes, an example, Arthur Krock noted, of
"derogation by omission.” When Vandenberg finished speaking, the Sen­
ate and the galleries stood and applauded, while a large group of col­
leagues lined up to shake his hand.24
Vandenberg’s speech clearly served notice on the Truman Administra­
tion that if it continued the conciliatory policy which Byrnes had
employed at Moscow and at the General Assembly meeting in London,
it could not expect further support from the Republican Party. The pros­
pect of congressional elections less than seven months away made this
threat seem particularly ominous. W hat Vandenberg and his fellow Re­
publicans did not know, however, was that the President and his advis­
ers had already decided to implement the hard line which the G.O.P.
had called for. An important new analysis of the influence of ideology
on Soviet behavior had given Administration officials the rationale they
needed for a "get tough with Russia” policy. At the moment Vanden­
berg was speaking, State Department speechwriters were placing the fin­
ishing touches on the first public statement of the Administration’s new
position.

Ill
American officials had been worrying about the relationship between
communism and Soviet foreign policy for some time. Ambassador Harri-
man, who had never taken too seriously the abolition of the Comintern,
reported as early as January, 1945, that the Russians were using local
communist organizations as one means of extending their influence over
neighboring countries, but he still interpreted this activity as an effort to
ensure the security of the Soviet Union. By April of that year, however,
Harriman had become convinced that ideology had replaced security as
the chief determinant of Soviet policy. "The outward thrust of Commu-
24 Congressional Record, February 27, 1946, pp. 1692—95. See also the New York
Times, February 28 and March 1, 1946; and the New Republic, CXIV (Mardi 11,
1946), 335-36.
G etting Tough w ith Russia 297

nism [is] not dead,” he told Navy Secretary Forrestal; “we might well
have to face an ideological warfare just as vigorous and dangerous as
Fascism or Nazism.” 25
*

The apparent abandonment of “popular front” tactics by the interna­

tional communist movement alarmed government leaders, just as it did
members of Congress. State Department officials attached great signifi­
cance to Jacques Dudos's attack on the Communist Party of the United
States, regarding it as clear evidence that Moscow had decided to resume
its efforts to spread world revolution. In June of 1945, the department
prepared a long report for President Truman on international commu­
nism. Taking note of recent developments in the French, Italian, and
American parties, the analysis concluded that communism posed a seri­
ous challenge to the government of the United States. American com­
munists could be expected to attack the Truman Administration for hav­
ing abandoned Roosevelt's policies. Communists would attempt to gain
confidential information by infiltrating sympathizers into sensitive gov­
ernment positions. Communist-inspired labor disputes would break out.
In Europe, communists would attempt to impede the operations of
American occupation forces. The report advised treating United States
communists as an “un-American” fifth column group owing allegiance
to a foreign power. It predicted that party members would try to portray
any action taken against them as anti-Soviet, but argued that decisive
moves against domestic subversion might actually improve relations
with Russia by demonstrating “the inherent strength of this country.” 26
George F. Kennan warned from Moscow in July, 1945, that the abo­
lition of the Comintern had in no way weakened Moscow's control over
the international communist movement. Foreign communists had always
demonstrated total loyalty to Moscow's orders, he maintained, even
when these ran counter to the best interests of their own countries. Un­
dersecretary of State Joseph Grew echoed Kennan's conclusions: “Evi­
dence has been accumulating for some time that [the] Communist In-
25 Hardman to Stettinius, January 10, 1945, FR: Yalta, pp. 450—51; Forrestal
Diary, April 20, 1945, Millis, ed., The Forrestal Diaries, p. 47. See also Harriman to
Stettinius, April 4, 1945, FR: 1945, V, 817—20.
26Memorandum by Raymond £. Murphy, special assistant to the Director of Euro­
pean Affairs, Department of State, on “Possible Resurrection of Communist Interna­
tional, Resumption of Extreme Leftist Activities, Possible Effect on United States,”
June 2, 1945, FR: Potsdam, I, 267—80. For the Duclos article, see chapter 8.
298 G etting Tough w ith Russia

ternational is being reactivated on a regional basis.” Communist parties

throughout the world were taking advantage of the vacuum left by the
defeat of Germany and inevitable postwar dislocations to win support
for their cause. Absence of a direct link with Moscow only made their
efforts more efficient. Secretary of State Byrnes suggested at Potsdam
that differences in ideology between the Soviet Union and the United
States were so pronounced that peaceful relations between the two coun­
tries might be impossible. Byrnes did not fully accept this pessimistic ap­
praisal, as his subsequent behavior at Moscow made clear, but he was
sufficiently concerned about the possibility of internal subversion to
order a discreet purge of questionable elements within the Department
of State in the fall of 1945.27
No one within the government took these indications of a revived
communist movement more seriously than did James V. Forrestal, secre­
tary of the navy. He wrote in May, 1945, that “we must face our diplo­
matic decisions from here on with the consciousness that half and maybe
all of Europe might be communistic by the end of the next winter.” One
month later he told Harry Hopkins and Lord Halifax, the British am­
bassador, that the United States could work with the Russians only if
they had given up their old intention of communizing the world. Forres­
tal clearly ascribed Soviet behavior to ideology, not to a desire for secu­
rity. He pointed out to Senator Homer Ferguson that
the bolsheviks have the advantage over us of having a clear outline of eco­
nomic philosophy, amounting almost to religion, which they believe is the
only solution to the government of man. It is the Marxian dialectic; it is as
incompatible with democracy as was Nazism or Fascism because it rests
upon the willingness to apply force to gain the end, whether that force is ap­
plied externally or by internal commotion.
Forrestal noted th at he had not had much tim e to think about this prob­
lem , but th at someone w ithin the governm ent should be thinking about
it.28
27Kennan to Byrnes, July 15, 1945, FR: 1945, V, 866—67; Grew to Kennan, July
25, 1945, ibid., pp. 872—73; Waiter Brown notes of a conversation with Byrnes, July
24, 1945, quoted in Curry, Byrnes, p. 345. For Byrnes's departmental "purge,” see
ibid., pp. 140—44.
28 Forrestal Diary, May 14 and June 30, 1945, Millis, ed., The Forrestal Diaries,
pp. 57—58, 72; Forrestal to Ferguson, May 14, 1945, ibid., p. 57. See also Arnold A.
Rogow, James Forrestal: A Study o f Personality, Politics, and Policy, chapter 4.
G etting Tough w ith Russia 299

Toward the end of 1945, Forrestal commissioned Professor Edward F.

W illett of Smith College to prepare a report on the relationship be­
tween communism and Soviet foreign policy. This was a vital topic, the
Navy Secretary wrote Walter Lippmann, “because to me the fundamen­
tal question in respect to our relations with Russia is whether we are
dealing with a nation or a religion.” Willett's paper stated that the ulti­
mate goals of communism were well known; what was not clear was
whether the leaders of the Soviet Union still adhered to that doctrine. If
they did not, then there was at least a possibility of settling outstanding
differences. But if the Kremlin had firmly committed itself to commu­
nism, its objectives would be so diametrically opposed to those of the
United States “as to make warfare between the two nations seem inevi­
table.” Another of Forrestal's advisers argued that while the Russians
might still give primary emphasis to maintaining their own security, it
looked as though Stalin would not consider himself secure as long as
capitalism survived anywhere in the world. “We are trying to preserve a
world in which a capitalistic-democratic method can continue,” Forrestal
wrote early in 1946, “whereas if Russian adherence to truly Marxian di­
alectics continues their interest lies in a collapse of this system.” 29
On February 9, 1946, in Moscow, Joseph Stalin made a rare public
speech in which he stressed the incompatibility of communism and capi­
talism. World War II had broken out, the Soviet leader asserted, because
of the uneven rate of development in capitalist economies. War could
have been avoided had some method existed for periodically redistribut­
ing raw materials and markets between nations according to need. No
such method could exist, however, under capitalism. Stalin clearly im­
plied that future wars were inevitable until the world economic system
was reformed, that is, until communism supplanted capitalism as the
prevailing form of economic organization. Emphasizing how rapid eco­
nomic development under the Soviet Union's first three Five-Year Plans
29 Memorandum by E. F. Willett on “Dialectical Materialism and Russian Objec­
tives,“ January 14, 1946, Forrestal MSS, Box 17, “Russia study“ folder; memorandum
by Thomas B. Inglis on “Soviet Capabilities and Possible Intentions,“ January 21,
1946, ibid., Box 24, “Russia“ folder; Forrestal diary, January 2, 1946, Millis, ed., The
Forrestal Diaries, p. 127. Forrestal circulated W illett’s memorandum widely among
government officials and such key nonofficial advisers as Walter Lippmann, Henry
Luce, and Bernard Baruch. {Ibid., p. 128; Vincent Davis, Postwar Defense Policy and
the U.S. Navy, 1943-1946, pp. 221-22, 328.)
300 G etting Tough w ith Russia

had made possible victory over Germany, he called for three postwar
Five-Year Plans, so that “our country [will] be insured against any
eventuality.” 30
Sympathetic American observers of the Soviet Union interpreted Sta­
lin's speech as an attempt to rally support within his country for the
new Five-Year Plan. The Soviet dictator, they contended, had to stress
the existence of dangers from the outside world to justify to his people
the difficult sacrifices which the new plan would demand. Secretary of
Commerce Henry Wallace viewed the address as a friendly challenge to
prove that the American economic system could work without frequent
depressions.31
Most observers, however, agreed with Time, which described the
speech as “the most warlike pronouncement uttered by any top-rank
statesman since V-J Day.” The Russians had abandoned the "soft” policy
they had followed during the war, the magazine asserted, and were now
returning to the slogans and tactics of world revolution. The New York
Times noted editorially that Stalin’s address would disappoint those who
assumed that communism and capitalism could coexist peacefully in the
postwar period. Ambassador Harriman, arriving back in Washington at
the end of his three-year tour of duty in Moscow, told Admiral Leahy
that the primary objective of Soviet foreign policy was now to extend
communist ideology to other parts of the world. Even liberals like Eric
Sevareid and William O. Douglas saw ominous overtones in Stalin’s
speech. Sevareid wrote in March:
The attitude of the American Communist Party . . . coupled with the line
taken by Communists in France, England, South American countries and
other places,. . . make it as clear as daylight that the Comintern, formalized
or not, is back in effective operation. If you can brush aside Stalin’s speech of
February 9, you are a braver man than I am.
Douglas told Forrestal simply that Stalin’s speech constituted “the Dec­
laration of World W ar III.” Forrestal himself from this time on appar-
30 Vital Speeches, XII (March 1, 1946), 300-4.
31 New Republic, CXIV (February 18, 1946), 235—36; Raymond Gram Swing
broadcast of February 11, 1946, Swing MSS, Box 29; Department of State, “Fort­
nightly Survey of American Opinion/’ No. 45, February 26, 1946; New York Times,
February 20, 1946.
G etting Tough w ith Russia 301

ently concluded that it would be impossible for democracy and commu­

nism to coexist.32
Stalin's February 9 address came at an extremely tense period in
Soviet-American relations. Washington officials worried over the appar­
ent determination of the Russian government to retain troops in Iran
and Manchuria. In the United Nations Security Council the Soviet
Union had just used its veto for the first time, not on a matter vital to its
national security, but on a relatively minor issue connected with the
presence of Anglo-French forces in Syria and Lebanon. On February 16,
1946, news of the Canadian spy case broke with the announcement from
Ottawa of the arrest of twenty-two individuals on charges of trying to
steal information on the atomic bomb for the Soviet Union. Several days
later, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover and General Leslie R. Groves ad­
mitted to a Senate committee that the Russians had obtained secret data
on the bomb through the Canadian espionage operation.33
The Canadian spy case frightened Americans not only because it in­
volved the atomic bomb but also because it seemed to indicate a link be­
tween Soviet espionage activities and the world communist movement.
Time noted darkly that “there is no doubt that Russian Communism
holds a peculiar attraction for some scientists and technicians." Repre­
sentative John Rankin warned that the spy ring extended “throughout
the United States and is working through various Communist front or­
ganizations,” but that the House Un-American Activities Committee
was on its trail. Admiral Leahy expressed the hope that the spy case
would expose some of the communists who he believed had infiltrated
the State Department. The Canadian incident greatly strengthened the
32 Time, XLVII (February 18, 1946), 29—30; New York Times, February 11,
1946; Leahy Diary, February 21, 1946, Leahy MSS; Sevareid to Harry Snydermann,
March 22, 1946, Sevareid MSS, Box 1; Forrestal Diary, February 17, 1946, Millis, ed.,
The Forrestal Diaries, pp. 134—35. For the State Department’s reaction to Stalins
speech, see FR: 1946, VI, 695».
33 New York Times, February 17, 1946; Hewlett and Anderson, The New World,
p. 501. The February 16 announcement had been stimulated, in part, by a Drew Pear­
son radio broadcast on February 3 which had revealed some details of the case. Cana­
dian Prime Minister Mackenzie King believed that the Pearson account had been offi­
cially “inspired": “I may be wrong but I have a feeling that there is a desire at
Washington that this information should get out." (Pickersgill and Forster, The Mac­
kenzie King Record, 1945—1946, pp. 133—35.)
302 G etting Tough w ith Russia

argument of those within and outside the Administration who had been
calling for a firmer policy toward the Soviet Union. As the New Repub­
lic lamented, the episode played into the hands of “Army officers and re­
actionary Congressmen, whose entire answer to the atomic-bomb ques­
tion is unlimited bomb production in this country and unlimited
espionage in other countries/* 34
Two weeks after Stalin’s speech, and one week after news of the spy
case broke, there arrived at the State Department a long cable from
George F. Kennan, the American chargé d’affaires in Moscow, analyzing
the motives behind Soviet behavior. Kennan had developed strong feel­
ings about communism while serving in the Moscow Embassy during
the 1930s: “I was never able to accept or condone the stony-hearted fa­
naticism that was prepared to condemn . . . entire great bodies of peo­
ple . . . for no other reason than that their members had been bom into
certain stations of life.” Returning to Moscow to serve under Harriman
in 1944, Kennan soon found himself at odds with the prevailing policy
of cooperation with the Russians. Repeatedly he bombarded the State
Department with unsolicited critical analyses of Soviet policy, couched
in discursive literary language. These efforts made no impression what­
soever in Washington, if, indeed, they were ever read. By February of
1946, however, the mood had changed. Wartime collaboration had col­
lapsed, and Ambassador Harriman was on his way home for good Ken­
nan, left in charge of the Moscow Embassy, was surprised to receive a
cable from an exasperated State Department soliciting his opinion on
why the Russians behaved the way they did.
“They had asked for it. Now, by God, they would have it.” Kennan
rapidly composed an eight-thousand-word telegram, “neatly divided, like
an eighteenth-century Protestant sermon, into five separate parts,” and
sent it off to Washington. The Soviets, he wrote, saw the world as split
into capitalist and socialist camps, between which there could be no
peaceful coexistence. They would try to do everything possible to
strengthen the socialist camp, while at the same time working to divide
34 Time, XLVII (February 25, 1946), 25—26; New York Times, February 17,
1946; Leahy Diary, February 16, 1946, Leahy MSS; New Republic, CXIV (March 4,
1946), 299—300. Joseph E. Davies found himself very much alone when he argued
that “Russia in self-defense has every moral right to seek atomic bomb secrets through
military espionage if excluded from such information by her former fighting allies.”
{New York Times, February 19, 1946.)
G ettin g Tough w ith Russia 303

and weaken capitalist nations. In time, capitalism would collapse be­

cause of its own internal contradictions and socialism would rise to take
its place. Kennan emphasized that the Russians had not arrived at this
analysis from an objective study of conditions outside the Soviet Union.
Rather, it stemmed from the Kremlin leaders* need to justify their auto­
cratic rule— a need Russian rulers had felt for centuries. For Stalin
and his associates, Marxist ideology provided the justification
for the dictatorship without which they did not know how to rule, for cruel­
ties they did not dare not to inflict, for sacrifices they felt bound to demand.
Marxism is the fig leaf of their moral and intellectual respectability. Without
it they would stand before history, at best, as only the last of that long suc­
cession of cruel and wasteful Russian rulers who have relentlessly forced their
country on to ever new heights of military power in order to guarantee ex­
ternal security for their internally weak regime.
The implications of Kennans analysis were ominous. If Soviet foreign
policy was formulated not in response to what happened in the rest of
the world but solely as a result of conditions within Russia, then no ac­
tion of the United States, no matter how well intentioned, could bring
about any diminution of hostility toward the West. The United States
was confronted with “a political force committed fanatically to the belief
that with [the] U.S. there can be no permanent modus vivendi, that it
is desirable and necessary that the internal harmony of our society be
broken, if Soviet power is to be secure.** The Russians would try to
achieve their objectives by increasing the power and influence of the So­
viet state, while at the same time working through “an underground op­
erating directorate of world communism, a concealed Comintern tightly
coordinated and directed by Moscow.** Under these circumstances only
two courses of action remained to the United States: first, to resist as
effectively as possible communist attempts, external and internal, to
overthrow Western institutions; second, to wait for internal changes
within the Soviet Union to produce some change in Russian policy.35
The reaction in Washington to this explanation of Soviet behavior
was, in Kennan*s words, “nothing less than sensational.** President Tru­
man read it, the State Department sent Kennan a message of commen­
dation, and Secretary of the Navy Forrestal had it reproduced and made
35 Kennan to Byrnes, February 22, 1946; FR: 1946, VI, 696—709. See also Kennan,
Memoirs, pp. 68—69, 292—93.
304 G etting Tough w ith Russia

required reading “for hundreds, if not thousands, of higher officers in the

armed services/’ The telegram arrived just as pressures were converging
from several sources to “get tough with Russia/' Truman himself had
done nothing to implement his resolution to “stop babying the Soviets”
in the month and a half since his reprimand to Byrnes, but on February
20, 1946, he told Admiral Leahy that he was extremely unhappy with
the existing policy of appeasing the Russians and was determined to as­
sume a stronger position at once. Kennan’s telegram of the 22d provided
precisely the intellectual justification needed for this reorientation of pol­
icy.36
Kennan himself, writing in retrospect, recognized clearly the impor­
tance of the timing:
It was one of those moments when official Washington, whose states of
receptivity . . . are . . . intricately imbedded in the subconscious . . . , was
ready to receive a given message. . . . Six months earlier [it] would prob­
ably have been received in the Department of State with raised eyebrows
and lips pursed in disapproval. Six months later, it would probably have
sounded redundant, a sort of preaching to the convinced. . . . All this only
goes to show that more important than the observable nature of external
reality, when it comes to the determination of Washington’s view of the
world, is the subjective state of readiness on the part of Washington official­
dom to recognize this or that feature of it.
The telegram, Kennan later admitted “with horrified amusement,” read
"like one of those primers put out by alarmed congressional committees
or by the Daughters of the American Revolution, designed to arouse the
citizenry to the dangers of the Communist conspiracy.” 37 But at the
time it proved persuasive enough, providing American officials with the
intellectual framework they would employ in thinking about commu­
nism and Soviet foreign policy for the next two decades.

IV
The first public expression of the Administration’s new policy came
on February 28, 1946, in a speech which Byrnes delivered to the Over-
36 Kennan, Memoirs, pp. 294—95; Leahy Diary, February 20, 21, 1946, Leahy MSS.
For the reception of Kennan’s telegram in Washington, see also Millis, ed., The For-
restai Diaries, pp. 135—40; Jones, The Fifteen Weeks, p. 133; and Lilienthal, Journals,
II, 26.
37 Kennan, Memoirs, pp. 294—95.
G etting Tough w ith Russia 305

seas Press Club in New York. Americans had welcomed the Soviet
Union into the family of nations as a power second to none, the Secre­
tary of State pointed out:
We have approved many adjustments in her favor and, in the process, re­
solved many serious doubts in her favor. . . . Despite the differences in our
way of life, our people admire and respect our Allies and wish to continue to
be friends and partners in a world of expanding freedom and rising stand­
ards of living. But in the interest of world peace and in the interest of our
common and traditional friendship we must make it plain that the United
States intends to defend the [United Nations] Charter.

Through that document the major nations of the world had pledged
themselves to renounce aggression. “We will not and we cannot stand
aloof if force or the threat of force is used contrary to the purposes and
principles of the Charter.” No nation had the right to station troops on
the territory of another sovereign state without its consent. No nation
had the right to prolong unnecessarily the making of peace. No nation
had the right to seize enemy property before reparations agreements had
been made. The United States did not regard the status quo as sacro­
sanct, but it could not overlook “a unilateral gnawing away at the status
quo.” Byrnes concluded in a manner reminiscent of Theodore Roosevelt:
“If we are to be a great power we must act as a great power, not only in
order to ensure our own security but in order to preserve the peace of
the world.” 38
Since it came only one day after Vandenberg’s strong Senate speech
attacking Administration foreign policy, many observers regarded
Byrnes's address as nothing more than a hastily written reply to the
Michigan senator. Irreverent reporters quickly dubbed it the “Second
Vandenberg Concerto.” Arthur Krock commented that the barbs Repub­
lican leaders had been aiming at the State Department had clearly had
their intended effect. Vandenberg himself did not hesitate to claim credit
for the Secretary of State's new position. Early in April he admitted to
Hamilton Fish Armstrong that he had been “partially responsible” for
Byrnes's speech. The Secretary of State had been “loitering around Mu­
nich” but was now “on the march.“ By July, the senator was writing
that “almost everybody . . . concedes to me the major influence in
changing the American attitude from ‘appeasement' to firm resistance ”
38 Department o f State Bulletin, XIV (March 10, 1946), 355—58.
306 G etting Tough w ith Russia

A year later, Vandenberg would look back to his own address as a cru­
cial turning point:
At London . . . I was completely dissatisfied with our complacency in the
presence of Soviet truculence. You may recall that I made a vigorous speech
on the floor of the Senate immediately upon my return. Thereafter, former
Secretary of State Byrnes sharply shifted his official position and 1 am bound
to testify that during the remainder of his term he vigorously resisted any
such “appeasement” and firmly stood his ground in behalf of American rights
and American ideals.39
Republican pressure undoubtedly did influence the Secretary of State’s
new position. Even if Byrnes did not revise his address at the last mo­
ment, as he later claimed, Vandenberg’s remarks on the floor of the Sen­
ate made it possible for the Secretary to speak with far greater confi­
dence of getting a favorable response. But to see Byrnes’s February 28
address merely as an oratorical gesture designed to placate Arthur H.
Vandenberg is to underrate considerably its significance. This was the
first open manifestation of the tougher Russian policy toward which the
Truman Administration had been moving since the Moscow Conference.
It also offered an important indication that Byrnes had resolved his dif­
ferences with critics inside the Administration over the conduct of for­
eign affairs. The calm but uncompromising tone of the Secretary’s re­
marks reflected a policy whose time, in the view of American leaders,
had clearly come. “Perhaps the most significant thing about this forceful
address,” Anne O’Hare McCormick concluded, “is that he [Byrnes]
thought it was what the country wanted and was waiting to hear.” 40
Less than a week after Byrnes spoke, Winston Churchill, former Brit-
**Time, XLVII (March 11, 1946), 19; Newsweek, XXVII (March 21, 1946), 35;
New York Times, March 2, 1946; Vandenberg to Armstrong, April 2, 1946, Frank
Januszewski, July 27, 1946, and H. W. Smith, March 6, 1947, Vandenberg MSS.
40 New York Times, March 2, 1946. Byrnes later denied having revised his speech
to take into account Vandenberg’s criticisms. He explained that he had avoided taking
a strong stand prior to this time because he had been worried about the weaknesses of
the armed forces. “I thought it wise not to voice publicly my concern when we had
only a twig with which to defend ourselves/’ But after hearing a report from General
Eisenhower on the progress of Army reorganization, Byrnes felt he could safely speak.
(Byrnes, All in One Lifetime, p. 349.) Truman told Stettinius on February 28 that
Vandenberg had found out in advance about Byrnes’s speech, and had arranged to
give his own address on the floor of the Senate one day earlier. (Stettinius calendar
notes, February 28, 1946, Stettinius MSS, Box 247.)
G ettin g Tough w ith Russia 307

ish prime minister and now a private citizen, introduced the phrase
“iron curtain” to the world in a speech at Fulton, Missouri. Truman
himself lent tacit endorsement to Churchill’s March 5,1946, message by
accompanying him to Missouri and personally introducing him to the
Fulton audience. Administration officials later denied that the President
had had any advance knowledge of what the British statesman proposed
to say, but in fact Churchill had carefully cleared his address with the
White House several weeks in advance, and both Truman and Byrnes
had read the final draft of the speech prior to its delivery. Far from
being a surprise, the harshly anti-Soviet Fulton address was very likely,
as Time suggested, a “magnificent trial balloon” designed to test the
American public's response to the Administration's new “get tough with
Russia” policy.41
Churchill had arrived in the United States in January, 1946, to begin
a long Florida vacation. At Truman's request he agreed to speak ajt Ful­
ton in March, and as early as February 10 flew to Washington to tell
the President what he planned to say. News that the President planned
to introduce the former prime minister caused some concern among Ad­
ministration advisers. Robert Hannegan, chairman of the Democratic
National Committee, warned Joseph Davies that Truman's presence on
the platform might be construed as an endorsement of whatever Church­
ill said. Davies went directly to the President on February 11, advising
him to be sure to ask to see Churchill's text in advance. Truman blandly
replied that this would not be necessary, since the speech would only be
“the usual "hands across the sea' stuff.” 42
The British leader continued to keep Administration officials fully in­
formed of his progress in drafting the Fulton speech. Secretary of State
Byrnes and his friend Bernard Baruch flew to Florida to see Churchill on
February 17, and there heard an outline of the proposed address. When
41 Time, XLVII (March 18, 1946), 19. For subsequent disclaimers of responsibility
by the Administration, see Truman's press conference of March 8, 1946, Truman Pub­
lic Papers: 1945, p. 145; and the statement by Press Secretary Charles G. Ross, New
York Times, March 19, 1946.
42 Leahy Diary, February 10, 1946, Leahy MSS; Davies Journal, February 11, 1946,
Davies MSS, Box 23. See also Lord Halifax to Henry L. Stimson, February 13, 1946,
Stimson MSS, Box 429. For background on the Fulton speech, see Jeremy K. Ward,
“Winston Churchill and the Tron Curtain* Speech,’* The History Teacher, I (January,
1968), 5 ff.
308 G etting Tough w ith Russia

Churchill came through Washington on his way to Fulton, he gave

“dress rehearsals” of the speech to both Byrnes and Admiral Leahy.
Churchill sent Truman a copy of his comments before they left Wash­
ington, but the President, anticipating criticism from the Russians, de­
cided not to look at it so that he could truthfully say he had not read
the speech prior to its delivery. Byrnes did, however, give the President a
ftdl summary of the address. Later, on the train, Truman changed his
mind and actually read the speech, remarking according to Churchill
that “it was admirable and would do nothing but good though it would
make a stir.” 43
The Fulton address painted a much gloomier picture of the state of
international affairs than that to which Americans had been accus­
tomed:
From Stettin in the Baltic to Triest in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has de­
scended across the Continent. Behind that line lie all the capitals of the an­
cient states of central and eastern Europe. Warsaw, Berlin, Prague, Vienna,
Budapest, Belgrade, Bucharest and Sofia, all these famous cities and the pop­
ulations around them lie in the Soviet sphere and all are subject in one form
or another, not only to Soviet influence but to a very high and increasing
measure of control from Moscow.
The Soviet Union, Churchill asserted, did not want war. But the Rus­
sians did want “the fruits of war and the indefinite expansion of their
power and doctrines.” No one could know with certainty what were the
limits of these “expansive and proselytizing tendencies.” Western powers
could not hope to preserve peace by allowing Moscow free rein: “From
what I have seen of our Russian friends . . . I am convinced that there
is nothing they admire so much as strength, and there is nothing for
which they have less respect than for military weakness.” The United
Nations offered the best hope for peace. But Churchill cautioned that
the world organization itself would be ineffective unless there developed
a “fraternal association of the English-speaking peoples.” 44
43New York Times, February 18, 1946; Byrnes, All in One Lifetime, p. 349;
Leahy Diary, March 3, 1946, Leahy MSS; Francis Williams, A Prime Minister Re­
members: The War and Post-War Memoirs o f the Rt. Hon. Earl Attlee, pp. 162—63.
44 Vital Speeches, XII (March 15, 1946), 329—32. The actual phrase, “iron cur­
tain," was not new. Churchill had used the term in a telegram to Truman on May 12,
1945 (see Churchill, Triumph and Tragedy, pp. 489—90), and Senator Vandenberg
had used it in a Senate speech {Congressional Record, November 15, 1945, pp.
10696-99).
G etting Tough w ith Russia 309

Churchill confused the issue by coupling his frank analysis of Soviet

policy with his call for what most observers regarded as an Anglo-Amer­
ican alliance. Senators Claude Pepper, Harley M. Kilgore, and Glen
Taylor issued a joint statement on March 6 accusing the British leader
of being unable to free his thinking “from the roll of the drums and the
flutter of the flag of Empire/' Churchill's “fraternal association," they
argued, would “cut the throat” of the United Nations. Mrs. Franklin D.
Roosevelt publicly chided her late husband's wartime associate for
implying that the English-speaking peoples could get along “without the
far greater number of people who are not English-speaking.” When
Churchill made his next public address in New York on March 15, pick­
ets appeared outside his hotel chanting “Winnie, Winnie, go away,
UNO is here to stay!” and “Don't be a ninny for imperialist Winnie!”
The State Department at the last minute advised Undersecretary of State
Acheson to absent himself from the proceedings so that his presence
would not imply official approval of what Churchill said.45
Most observers, however, still regarded the Fulton address as a public
expression of what the Administration thought privately. Ernest K.
Lindley pointed out that government officials, speaking strictly off-the-
record, generally applauded Churchill's speech as something which
badly needed to be said.46 There is no reason to question the accuracy
of this view. The criticism directed at the Administration's “magnificent
trial balloon” did not weaken Truman's resolve to reorient American
policy toward the Soviet Union. It simply indicated that while the
American people were anxious to “get tough with Russia,” they were
not yet fiilly prepared to accept the responsibilities, in the form of
closer ties with Britain and other noncommunist nations, which “getting
tough” entailed.
If the oratorical efforts of Byrnes and Churchill left any doubt regard­
ing the Administration's new attitude toward the Soviet Union, the
manner in which it handled the Iranian crisis of March, 1946, quickly
45 Taylor-Kilgore-Pepper press release, March 6, 1946, copy in the Theodore Francis
Green MSS, Box 414, “Foreign Relations Legislation“ file; New York Times, March
15, 1946; Acheson, Sketches from Life, p. 62. For reaction to the Fulton address, see
also the New York Times, March 6 and 7, 1946; Time, XLVII (March 25, 1946),
19; Newsweek, XXVII (March 25, 1946), 28; and the Department of State, “Fort­
nightly Survey of American Opinion,” No. 47, March 20, 1946.
46 Newsweek, XXVII (March 10, 1946), 29-30, 36.
310 G etting Tough w ith Russia

resolved them. Early in 1942, Great Britain and the Soviet Union had
moved troops into Iran to keep that strategically located and oil-rich
country from falling into the hands of the Axis. Both Allies agreed to
respect the independence and territorial integrity of Iran and to with­
draw their forces six months after the termination of hostilities, an un­
derstanding which they reaffirmed at Teheran in 1943, and again at the
foreign ministers’ conference in September, 1945. Reports reaching Lon­
don and Washington during the final months of 1945, however, raised
fears that the Russians might try to annex the province of Azerbaijan to
the Soviet Union, with the intention of bringing all of Iran into Mos­
cow’s sphere of influence once the British had withdrawn. Attempts to
elicit reassurance on this point from the Kremlin proved unavailing—
Stalin told Byrnes at Moscow that if Soviet forces were pulled out Ira­
nian saboteurs might try to blow up the Baku oil fields— and on Jan­
uary 19, 1946, the Iranian government with the tacit approval of the
United States placed the question of Azerbaijan before the United Na­
tions Security Council.47
At first, Byrnes rejected suggestions that the United States issue a pub­
lic statement on the situation for fear this “might imply that we have al­
ready formed a fixed opinion with regard to the merits of the case.” But
when the March 2, 1946, deadline for withdrawing foreign troops from
Iran passed without any Soviet moves to evacuate Azerbaijan, the Secre­
tary of State adopted a tougher approach. On March 5, the same day
Churchill spoke at Fulton, he dispatched a stiff note to Moscow calling
for the immediate removal of Soviet forces from Iranian soil. The Secre- I

tary then took the unusual step of releasing the substance of this note to
the press, without waiting for the Russian reply.48
The week which followed was an extremely tense one— Newsweek
found the atmosphere reminiscent of the fall of 1938, when the Munich
crisis was at its height. Early on the morning of March 6, 1946, the
State Department received word from its vice-consul in Azerbaijan, Rob­
ert Rossow, Jr., that “exceptionally heavy Soviet troop movements” were
taking place, not toward the Russian border, but in the direction of Tur-
47 FR: 1945, VIII, 388-522; FR: 1946, VII, 289-304. See also the minutes of the
Byrnes-Stalin conversation of December 19, 1945, FR: 1945, II, 685.
48 Byrnes to Wallace Murray, January 28, 1946, FR: 1946, VII, 317; Byrnes to
Molotov, March 5, 1946, ibid., pp. 340—42; New York Times, March 6, 1946.
G ettin g Tough w ith Russia 311

key, Iraq, and the Iranian capital, Teheran. Byrnes, upon hearing of
these developments, exclaimed angrily that the Russians now seemed to
be adding military invasion to their political subversion in Iran. A For­
eign Service officer who showed Byrnes the alleged troop movements on
a map recalls that the Secretary beat one fist into the other and an­
nounced: “Now w ell give it to them with both barrels.” Noting that
the Russians had not yet replied to the department's March 5 note,
Byrnes and his advisers decided to dispatch a stronger telegram to Mos­
cow asking the reason for these military maneuvers. When, by March
12, no answer had been received, the department released to the press
news that Russian tanks were moving on Teheran. Apparently stung by
the unwanted publicity, TASS, the Soviet news agency, three days later
issued a statement denying these reports “absolutely.” 49
Throughout this period bilateral negotiations between the Russian
and Iranian governments had been going on, first in Moscow, then in
Teheran, in accordance with a Security Council resolution of January 30.
Despite this, the Iranians, with the strong encouragement of the United
States, insisted on submitting the issue of Soviet troop movements to the
Council, which was due to meet again in New York on March 25. The
Russians objected to this procedure, letting the Iranians know privately
that they would regard such a move as an “unfriendly” act. On the
day the Council met, however, TASS announced that the USSR had
promised to pull all troops out of Azerbaijan within five or six weeks.
Andrei Gromyko, Russian representative at the United Nations, re­
quested that in view of this accord the Iranian matter be withdrawn
from the Security Council agenda. Byrnes refused, arguing that the Ira­
nians had not confirmed the Soviet agreement or made clear whether
the Russians expected anything in return. On March 27, after the Coun­
cil had voted to leave the matter on the agenda, Gromyko angrily and
dramatically walked out of the chamber. One week later, however, the
49 Newsweek, XXVII (March 25, 1946), 24; Rossow to Byrnes, March 5, 1946 (re­
ceived in Washington on March 6), FR: 1946, VII, 340; memorandum by Edwin M.
Wright, “Events Relative to the Azarbaijan Issue— March, 1946,” August 16, 1965,
ibid., pp. 346—48; Byrnes to Molotov, March 8, 1946, ibid., p. 348; New York
Times, March 13, 1946; Kennan to Byrnes, March 15, 1946, FR: 1946, VII, 356.
James Reston observed later in March that the department had almost certainly exag­
gerated the seriousness of these Russian troop movements. (New York Times, March
20, 1946.)
312 G etting Tough w ith Russia

Soviet and Iranian governments announced a formal agreement calling

for the withdrawal of Soviet troops by early May and recognizing Ira­
nian sovereignty over Azerbaijan.50
Byrnes's decision to push the Iranian issue through the Security Coun­
cil, even after the Russians had indicated their willingness to withdraw
troops from Iran, stemmed chiefly from domestic considerations: the Sec­
retary of State wanted to make clear to his critics at home that the
United States had abandoned the politics of appeasement once and for
all. Benjamin V. Cohen, Byrnes's close associate, explained the situation
to Molotov at the Paris Foreign Ministers' Conference later in April:
Mr. Cohen made the point that, whereas before a public event such as the
retention of Soviet troops, beyond the treaty date, in Iran had occurred, it
was possible to attempt privately to arrange matters in dispute, but that once
a public event such as in this case had occurred, the issue had to be met in
the light of public opinion, and it was impossible then to settle such things
on the basis of any deal.
Byrnes himself told French Foreign Minister Georges Bidault that he
“had been very much impressed with the way opinion had rallied behind
the American position during the discussions of the Iranian question in
the Security Council.” Soviet popularity in the United States had been
“completely dissipated” by Moscow's behavior. The Secretary of State ac­
knowledged that recently he had been subjected to considerable criticism
for yielding too much to the Russians. “This period, however, had passed
and American opinion was no longer disposed to make concessions on
important questions.” 51

The period of late February and early March, 1946, marked a decisive
turning point in American policy toward the Soviet Union. Prior to this
50 FR: 1946, VII, 322—415. The April 4 agreement granted the Russians 31 per­
cent of the shares in a joint Iranian-Soviet oil company, but the Iranian parliament
later refused to ratify this agreement. (Herbert Feis, From Trust to Terror, p. 85.)
51 Bohlen notes, conversation between Byrnes, Cohen, and Molotov, April 28,1946,
FR: 1946, VII, 442; Bohlen notes, Byrnes-Bidault conversation. May 1, 1946, ibid., II,
204.
G ettin g Tough w ith Russia 313

time, Washington officials had frequently resisted Russian demands, but

not on a consistent basis. As late as December, 1945, Byrnes was still
operating on the assumption that Russia and the United States shared a
common interest in settling outstanding difficulties. But by March of
1946, widespread criticism of “appeasement” had made it clear to the
Truman Administration that further compromises with Moscow would
mean political disaster at home. Simultaneously Soviet behavior, to­
gether with Kennan’s persuasive analysis of it, convinced Washington
officials that Stalin and his associates were ideological zealots who
viewed conflict with the West as necessary to attain their objectives.
Byrnes’s Overseas Press Club speech, Churchill’s Fulton address, and the
State Department’s firm handling of the Iranian crisis meant that Amer­
ican officials had gone as far as they could go in seeking a settlement
with Moscow: negotiations would continue, but from now on all the
concessions would have to come from the other side.52
Contemporary observers clearly saw the period as a pivotal one. A
State Department survey of editorial opinion noted that the speeches of
Vandenberg, Byrnes, and Churchill were widely regarded as constituting
“a turning point in American policy toward Russia,” and had produced
a public reaction “of unprecedented magnitude.” The New Republics
“TRB,” always a sensitive interpreter of the Washington mood, observed
that judicious men within the government, whom no one could accuse of
being Russophobes, now expected a major confrontation with Moscow.
Foreign Service officer C. Burke Elbrick wrote privately to Arthur Bliss
Lane, the American ambassador in Warsaw: “You will have noted a
general toughening in the official attitude not only toward our Polish
friends but, what is more important, toward the originator of many of
our present difficulties and misunderstandings. We all hope that it will
produce fruit.” Elmer Davis told his radio audience that people who had
been demanding a firmer policy toward Russia were now getting what
they had asked for.53
52 Assistant Secretary of State James C. Dunn wrote Byrnes in April that “the basic
objectives of the Russians on the one hand and the British, French and ourselves on
the other . . . are at present so divergent that the possibility of reaching agreement
lies chiefly in the hope that the Russians may feel it essential to improve their rela­
tions with the British and ourselves and their world standing.” (Dunn to Byrnes,
April 18, 1946, FR: 1946, II, 72.)
53 Department of State, “Fortnightly Survey of American Opinion,” No. 47, March
314 G etting Tough w ith Russia

The increasing popularity of Secretary of State Byrnes also indicated

that a change in policy had taken place— as Byrnes moved toward a
tougher position he regained much of the support he had lost through
his earlier conciliatory approaches to Moscow. Admiral Leahy now de­
nied recurring rumors that he had tried to have Byrnes fired, and assured
the Secretary of State of his friendship. Averell Harriman told C. L.
Sulzberger in April that Byrnes had increased in stature and was “a
much stronger man now.” James Reston and Arthur Krock noted that
the Iranian crisis had greatly increased Byrnes’s prestige; no one could
now assert, Krock commented, that the Secretary of State was “a trader
and a compromiser who will always take the easiest way out of a diffi­
culty.” Bernard Baruch, whom Truman had just named to represent the
United States on the United Nations Atomic Energy Commission, con­
gratulated Byrnes on his performance in the Security Council with an
elaborately mixed biblical metaphor: “You proved yourself a David in
meeting the Goliath of disintegration at the first UNO meeting.. . . Let
us not fear the Philistines of whom Samson slew a thousand with the
jawbone of an ass. There are bigger asses and bigger jawbones now than
in those days.” *54
Another clear sign of the Administration’s new policy was the alarm
generated among the dwindling number of prominent Americans who
still sympathized with the Russians. Joseph E. Davies wrote to Cordell
Hull on March 17 that the past year’s deterioration of Big Three unity
had been nothing short of “tragic.” Davies noted that since the Moscow
Conference members of the Senate had been demanding that Byrnes
take a firmer line, and that the Secretary of State had now yielded to
this pressure. Senator Claude Pepper of Florida interpreted recent Rus­
sian actions as resulting not from expansive tendencies within the Soviet
Union but from fear of a hostile Anglo-American coalition. Former Inte­
rior Secretary Harold Ickes publicly implied that the Truman Adminis-
20, 1946; New Republic, CXIV (March 18, 1946), 382; Elbrick to Lane, March 11,
1946, Lane MSS; Davis radio broadcast, March 5, 1946, Davis MSS, Box 13. See also
Newsweek, XXVII (April 8 and 15, 1946), 16, 20.
54 Leahy Diary, March 13, 18, 1946, Leahy MSS; Sulzberger Diary, April 22, 1946,
quoted in Sulzberger, A Long Row o f Candles, p. 311; New York Times, April 7,
1946; Baruch to Byrnes, March 31, 1946, Baruch MSS, “Selected Correspondence.”
See also Newsweek, XXVII (April 29, 1946), 16; and US. News, XX (May 3,
1946), 54.
G etting Tough w ith Russia 315

tration had abandoned President Roosevelt’s policy of cooperation with

Russia. James Roosevelt, the late President’s son, questioned whether
Truman had made a real effort to represent the Kremlin’s point of view
to the American people. Secretary of Commerce Henry A. Wallace sent
a letter to Truman on March 14 advocating a wholly new approach to
the Russians, stressing the possibility of economic collaboration. Several
days later Wallace proclaimed publicly that the United States and Great
Britain could not “try to strut around the world and tell people where to
get off.” 55
But an opinion poll taken in mid-March demonstrated with emphatic
clarity that the American public was no longer prepared to accept the
views of Wallace and other Russophiles: 71 percent of those polled dis­
approved of the policy the Soviet Union was following in world affairs;
only 7 percent expressed approval. Sixty percent of the same sample
thought the United States was being “too soft” in its relations with Mos­
cow; only 3 percent felt Washington’s approach was “too tough.” 56
Truman and Byrnes could thus count on solid public support as they
moved to implement their new policy of “patience with firmness”;
whether Americans would willingly assume the costs of this policy over
a long period of time remained, however, very much in doubt.
55 Davies to Hull, March 17, 1946, Davies Journal, March 25, 1946, Davies MSS,
Box 23; New York Times, March 21, 15, 19, 1946. Wallace’s March 14 letter is
printed in Truman, Year o f Decisions, pp. 555—56.
56 American Institute of Public Opinion poll of March 13, 1946, cited in Cantril
and Strunk, eds., Public Opinion, pp. 963, 1060. The exact questions asked in this
poll were: “In general, do you approve or disapprove of the policy Russia is following
in world affairs?” Approve, 7 percent; disapprove, 71 percent; no opinion, 22 percent.
“Do you think the United States is being too soft or too tough in its policy toward
Russia?” Too soft, 60 percent; too tough, 3 percent; all right, 21 percent; no opinion,
16 percent.
 10

Implementing the N ew Policy

By stressing the importance of internal influences on Soviet diplomacy,

Kennan's “long telegram” of February 22, 1946, provided Washington
officials with a convincing rationale for the “get tough with Russia” pol­
icy toward which they had already been moving. Further concessions to
Moscow would be futile, Kennan argued; the Stalinist regime would al­
ways remain hostile because it depended upon the existence of foreign
threats to maintain its domestic authority. “Nothing short of complete
disarmament, delivery of our air and naval forces to Russia and resign­
ing of powers of government to American Communists” would come
close to alleviating Russian distrust, and even then the Kremlin would
probably “smell a trap and would continue to harbor the most baleful
misgivings.” Suspicion, Kennan noted in March, "is an integral part of
[the] Soviet system, and will not yield entirely to any form of rational
persuasion or assurance.” 1
The Truman Administration's handling of the Iranian crisis showed
its acceptance of Kennan's analysis: throughout the rest of 1946 the
United States made no concessions of significance to the Soviet Union.
1 Kennan to Byrnes, March 20, 1946, FR: 1946, VI, 723. For the "long telegram,"
see chapter 9.
To the Truman Doctrine 317

In the Mediterranean, Washington employed a vigorous demonstration

of gunboat diplomacy to turn back an apparent Soviet bid for the Dar­
danelles. In Germany, United States officials began moving toward tacit
dismemberment rather than see that country unified under Moscow's
control. At the United Nations, American diplomats decided that the
risk of a nuclear arms race was preferable to the adoption of a less-than-
foolproof scheme for the international control of atomic energy. At the
seemingly interminable meetings of the Council of Foreign Ministers in
Paris and New York, and at the larger but less important Paris Peace
Conference, Byrnes, with Connally and Vandenberg at his side, stub­
bornly resisted Soviet demands. With the extension of a $3.75 billion
loan to Great Britain, the Truman Administration committed itself to
the principle of using American resources to rebuild Western Europe,
not so much for the traditional objective of reviving world trade, though
this goal remained important, but for the more urgent purpose of alle­
viating social and economic conditions which might breed communism.
But although most Americans supported the Administration's deter­
mination to take a firm stand, few seemed willing to make the sacrifices
necessary to implement this policy. Pressure for instant demobilization
continued, raising doubts as to whether the Pentagon could maintain the
military strength necessary to back up a tougher diplomatic strategy.
Popular demands for the abolition of wartime taxes and economic con­
trols made it clear that the government would have difficulty in financ­
ing aid to nations threatened by communism. The hostile response to
Churchill's Fulton address and the British loan revealed that a substan­
tial number of Americans still indulged in old-fashioned Anglophobia, a
luxury ill-suited to a nation seeking to rally the forces of the West
against Soviet expansionism. “Getting tough with Russia” involved re­
sponsibilities as well as rhetoric, and government leaders could not hope
to accomplish their objectives without educating the American people to
that fact.
The Truman Doctrine, proclaimed in March, 1947, represented a de­
liberate effort by the Administration to do this. By portraying the So-
viet-American conflict as a clash between two mutually irreconcilable
ideologies, the President and his advisers managed to shock Congress
and the public into providing the support necessary to implement a
tough policy. But in the process they trapped themselves in a new
318 To the Truman Doctrine

cycle of rhetoric and response which in years to come would signifi­

cantly restrict the Administration's flexibility in dealing with Moscow.

I
After the events of February and March, 1946, it became increasingly
difficult for American officials to continue viewing Soviet behavior solely
in terms of a search for security. Kennan’s emphasis on the ideological
determinants of Kremlin policy, together with Stalin's February 9 speech
and Russian belligerence in Iran, strongly reinforced the judgment of
those who believed that Moscow sought to impose communism on as
much of the world as possible. Those who had not previously held this
view now began to find it more and more persuasive. Simultaneously,
successful resolution of the Iranian crisis convinced virtually all Wash­
ington policy-makers that Byrnes's policy of “patience with firmness” of­
fered the only sure means of countering the Soviet challenge without re­
sort to war.
Members of the military establishment found Kennan's analysis
especially persuasive. “We are dealing not only with Russia as a national
entity,” Forrestal told Winston Churchill on March 10, “but with the
expanding power of Russia under Peter the Great plus the additional
missionary force of a religion.” In April, the Navy Secretary warned that
“the Commies are working their heads off in France, the Balkans, Japan
and anywhere else where they happen to have access.” General Lucius
D. Clay, military governor of the United States zone in Germany, admit­
ted to Forrestal that Stalin’s February speech had caused him to reassess
his previous opinion that the Russians did not want a war. Lieutenant
General John R. Hodge, commander of American forces in Korea, wrote
Secretary of War Robert Patterson in November that “there can be no
question but as to the world-wide push of Communism with the main
all-out effort now directed against the United States.” Patterson himself
observed in the summer of 1947 that he had once thought the Russians
had abandoned the idea of an inevitable struggle between capitalism
and communism, “but apparently it is still part of the creed.” 2
2 Forrestal Diary, March 10 and July 16, 1946, Millis, ed., The Forrestal Diaries,
pp. 144, 182; Forrestal to Garence Dillon, April 11, 1946, ibid., p. 153; Hodge to
To the Truman Doctrine 319

American diplomats in the Soviet Union expressed similar views. Late

in May, 1946, General Walter Bedell Smith, the new United States am­
bassador in Moscow, quoted with apparent approval a British Foreign
Office analysis of Russian intentions which asserted that the Kremlin
had set no limits to its objectives in Europe. Elbridge Durbrow, Ken-
nan’s replacement as chargé d’affaires in Moscow, reported in the fall of
1946 that the Russians were trying to accomplish what they had been
unable to achieve after World W ar I: “namely, [to] extend their con­
trol and introduce their type of Marxian political and economic system
as far as possible” while the Red Army was occupying Eastern Europe
and the Balkans. “In [the] event of another world war, which accord­
ing to their continually emphasized Marxian theory is inevitable, they
hope to be strong enough to extend their system yet further.” John
Paton Davies, first secretary of the Moscow Embassy, wrote Ambassador
Smith in November that “the political philosophy of the men who rule
Russia, despite its confusing tactical flexibility, is as intolerant and dog­
matic as that which motivated the zealots of Islam or the Inquisition in
Spain.” *3
Members of the press quickly sensed the increasing emphasis policy­
makers were placing on ideology. Joseph and Stewart Alsop reported as
early as February 28,1946, that Washington now feared Soviet commit­
ment “to a policy of unlimited expansion.” In March, C. L. Sulzberger
noted a consensus among diplomatic observers that most Kremlin offi­
cials now believed in the incompatibility of communism and capitalism,
though some thought Stalin himself had not yet firmly embraced this
doctrine. James Reston observed in May that, in the view of Washing­
ton officials, the Soviet Union was “using its economic, political and mil­
itary power to support Communist elements all over Europe.” By Sep­
tember, Newsweek was reporting flatly: “U.S. officials in the best position
to judge fear they have confirmation that the Soviet Government has
Patterson, November 5, 1946, Patterson MSS, Box 20; Patterson to Palmer Hoyt, June
23, 1947, ibid. Other expressions of concern over the ideological orientation of Soviet
foreign policy can be found in a memorandum by Vice-Admiral Forrest P. Sherman,
March 17, 1946, Forrestal MSS, Box 17; Forrestal's speech to the Pittsburgh Foreign
Policy Association, April 29, 1946, quoted in Millis, ed., The Forrestal Diaries, p.
155; and the Leahy Diary, May 7, 1946, Leahy MSS.
3 Smith to Byrnes, May 31, 1946, FR: 1946, VI, 758; Durbrow to Byrnes, October
31, 1946, ibid,, p. 797; Davies to Smith, November 18, 1946, ibid,, p. 806.
320 To the Truman Doctrine

made up its mind that capitalism must be destroyed if Communism is to

live.” 4
Perhaps the most influential unofficial analysis of how communism in­
fluenced Soviet foreign policy came from John Foster Dulles, still the
Republican Party's chief spokesman on international affairs. After brood­
ing over the matter for some time, Dulles, by the spring of 1946, had
become convinced that ideological influences governed Russian behavior.
Accepting an invitation from Henry Luce to use Life magazine as a
forum for his views, Dulles wrote a widely quoted article that argued:
The foreign policy of the Soviet Union is world wide in scope. Its goal is to
have governments everywhere which accept the basic doctrine of the
Soviet Communist Party and which suppress political and religious thinking
which runs counter to these doctrines. Thereby the Soviet Union would
achieve world-wide harmony—a Pax Sovietica.
In Dulles' view, Stalin's Problems o f Leninism was to communism what
Hitler's Mein Kampf had been to fascism: a program for unlimited ex­
pansion which world statesmen could ignore only at their peril. Dulles
accepted the Soviet threat optimistically, agreeing with Arnold Toynbee
that without periodic challenges, civilizations decayed and passed away.
Strong military power, together with an effective demonstration of
American ideals in action, would, he felt, wean the world's uncommitted
peoples away from the appeal of communism. Dulles' argument received
wide attention and a generally favorable response.5
The growing tendency to view Moscow's actions as motivated chiefly
by ideology soon had its effect on the public at large. Wartime opinion
polls had indicated that most Americans, particularly those well in-
4 Washington Post, March 1, 1946; New York Times, March 24 and May 6, 1946;
Newsweek, XXVIII (September 9, 1946), 27.
5 Louis L. Gerson, John Foster Dulles, pp. 44—51; John Foster Dulles, ‘Thoughts
on Soviet Foreign Policy and What to Do about It,” Life, XX (June 3 and 10, 1946),
113—26, 118—30; Dulles to Joseph Barnes, January 31, 1947, Dulles MSS. See also
Dulles* speech prepared for delivery at the College of the City of New York, June 19,
1946, Vital Speeches, XII (July 15, 1946), 593—95; New York Times, September 9,
1946; and Dulles to James P. Warburg, September 16, 1946, Dulles MSS. Luce in
1965 described his relationship with Dulles as follows: “I would say that between
1944 and 1953, when he became Secretary of State, my main connection with him
was as an editor with a very special writer. We chose him to express. . . . Well, I
won't put it quite that way. He had ideas that he wanted to give expression to, and
they very much coincided with the general ideas that we had here.” (Interview with
Luce, July 28, 1965, Dulles Oral History Project.)
To the Truman Doctrine 321

formed about Russia, regarded security from future attack as the main
goal of Stalin’s foreign policy. A Fortune poll taken as late as Septem­
ber, 1945, revealed that only 25 percent of the sample expected the Rus­
sians to try to spread communism into Eastern Europe. A similar survey
made in July, 1946, however, showed that more than half of those
polled now believed that the Kremlin wanted to dominate as much of
the world as possible. Subsequent polls consistently demonstrated that
approximately two out of three Americans held this view. Unlike the
wartime situation, levels of information about Russia seemed to make no
difference in determining attitudes on this point: most Americans now
viewed the Soviet Union as a dictatorship irrevocably committed to the
forcible imposition of communism wherever it did not already exist.6
In the summer of 1946, President Truman directed his special coun­
sel, Clark M. Clifford, to compile a comprehensive report on American
relations with the Soviet Union. The resulting hundred-thousand-word
document, prepared after consultations with the Secretaries of State,
War, and Navy, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Attorney General, the
Director of Central Intelligence, and other top Administration officials,
drew heavily on Kennan’s analysis by stressing the influence of ideology
on Russian diplomacy: “The key to an understanding of current Soviet
foreign policy . . . is the realization that Soviet leaders adhere to the
Marxian theory of ultimate destruction of capitalist states by communist
states.” Kremlin leaders did not want an immediate confrontation with
the West, but they apparently did regard an eventual war with the
United States and other capitalist countries as inevitable:
They are increasing their military power and the sphere of Soviet influence
in preparation for the “inevitable“ conflict, and they are trying to weaken
and subvert their potential opponents by every means at their disposal. So
long as these men adhere to these beliefs, it is highly dangerous to conclude
that hope of international peace lies only in “accord,“ “mutual understand­
ing,“ or “solidarity“ with the Soviet Union.
Concessions to the Russians would only have the effect “of raising Soviet
hopes and increasing Soviet demands.” If Moscow refused to cooperate
with the United States, “we should be prepared to join with the British
6 Almond, The American People and Foreign Policy, pp. 94—95; M. Brewster
Smith, 'T he Personal Setting of Public Opinions: A Study of Attitudes Toward Rus­
sia,'* Public Opinion Quarterly, XI (Winter, 1947—48), 514—15. For wartime attitudes
on the relationship of ideology to Soviet foreign policy, see chapter 2.
322 To the Truman Doctrine

and other Western countries in an attempt to build up a world of our

own . . . recogniz [ing] the Soviet orbit as a distinct entity with which
conflict is not predestined but with which we cannot pursue common
aims/'
Americans would have to face the fact, the memorandum continued,
that Stalin might at any time provoke war in order to expand the terri­
tory under communist control or to weaken potential capitalist oppo­
nents. Washington should be prepared “to resist vigorously and success­
fully any efforts of the U.S.S.R. to expand into areas vital to American
security.” Only through maintenance of a strong military establishment
could this be done:
The language of military power is the only language which disciples of
power politics understand. The United States must use that language in order
that Soviet leaders will realize that our government is determined to uphold
the interests of its citizens and the rights of small nations. Compromise and
concessions are considered, by the Soviets, to be evidences of weakness and
they are encouraged by our “retreats” to make new and greater demands.
If necessary, the United States should even be prepared “to wage atomic
and biological warfare.” The Clifford report concluded that the objective
of American policy should be to convince leaders of the Soviet Union
that war between communism and capitalism was not inevitable: “It is
our hope that they will change their minds and work out with us a fair
and equitable settlement when they realize that we are too strong to be
beaten and too determined to be frightened.” 7
Ironically, Kennan himself did not believe that the Soviet Union
sought world revolution. In his view, Marxist-Leninist ideology was sim­
ply a crude means of justifying a repressive regime, not a blueprint for
unlimited expansion. A Soviet invasion of Western Europe seemed
highly unlikely to Kennan; indeed, he felt that the Russians would have
difficulty in retaining control of their East European satellites. In Octo­
ber, 1946, he wrote:
I think it is a mistake to say that the Soviet leaders wish to establish a Com­
munist form of government in the ring of states surrounding the Soviet
7 “American Relations with the Soviet Union,“ a report prepared by Clark M. Clif­
ford and submitted to Truman on September 24, 1946, printed in Arthur Krock,
Memoirs: Sixty Years on the Firing Line, Appendix A, pp. 431, 476—78, 482. Clif­
ford’s assistant, George M. Elsey, actually drafted most of the report. (Elsey memoran­
dum on “L’Affaire Wallace,” September 17, 1946, Elsey MSS, Box 105.)
To the Truman Doctrine 323

Union on the west and south. What they do wish to do is to establish in

those states governments amenable to their own influence and authority.
The main thing is that these governments should follow Moscow's leader­
ship. . . . In certain countries which are already extensively under Soviet
influence, as for example Poland, there has been as yet no effort to establish
what we might call a Communist form of government. There have indeed
been efforts—and very important and successful ones—to carry out in
those countries social and economic reforms designed to ease the mainte­
nance there of permanent communist-inspired dictatorships. But this is not
a Communist form of government. It should always be borne in mind that
for the Communist leaders, power is the main thing. Form is a secondary
consideration.
Kennan did not, however, make this distinction clear in his “long tele­
gram" of February, 1946, or in a highly publicized elaboration of that
dispatch, the famous “X" article which appeared in Foreign Affairs in
July, 1947.8 His lack of clarity had the effect, therefore, of confirming
the growing suspicion in Washington that Stalin, like Hitler, would not
stop until he dominated the entire world.

II
The Administration's new policy of “patience with firmness,” described
in the Clifford memorandum, manifested itself clearly in relations with
the Soviet Union during the rest of 1946. Secretary of State Byrnes ex­
hibited ample reserves of both qualities during the long series of interna­
tional conferences held throughout the summer and fall to write peace
treaties for Italy, Hungary, Bulgaria, Rumania, and Finland. The Coun­
cil of Foreign Ministers met in two sessions in Paris from April through
July to draft the treaties. From July to October, representatives from all
of the World W ar II allies gathered in the French capital to consider
the drafts which the Big Four had agreed upon. Following this, the for­
eign ministers met again in New York in November to put the treaties
in final form, a process completed early in December. Throughout the
lengthy wrangle over the “minor” peace treaties, Byrnes adhered tena-
8 Kennan, Memoirs, pp. 247—51; Kennan to Admiral Harry Hill, October 7, 1946,
copy in Forrestal MSS, Box 70; Mr. “X ,” “The Sources of Soviet Conduct,” Foreign
Affairs, XXV (July, 1947), 566—82. For an account of the circumstances surrounding
publication of the “X ” article, see Kennan, Memoirs, pp. 354—67.
324 To the Truman Doctrine

ciously to the American position, forcing the Russians to make most of

the concessions.9
The Secretary of State carefully sought bipartisan support at every
stage of this process. Taking literally Senator Vandenberg’s desire to be
in on the “takeoffs” of American foreign policy as well as the “crash
landings,” Byrnes saw to it that he and Senator Connally were included
in the American delegation to each of these conferences. This took the
senators out of the country in a year when both faced reelection, but
Connally had no significant opposition in Texas, and the Administration
offered no encouragement to Vandenberg’s weak Democratic opponent
in Michigan. Vandenberg and Connally soon became bored with the
proceedings since every speech had to be repeated in several different
languages— Byrnes observed with amusement that both senators be­
came experts at drawing “futuristic” doodles during these periods—
but their presence was important to the Secretary of State in securing
domestic backing for his policies. The two senators strongly reinforced
Byrnes’s determination to make no further compromises with the Rus­
sians. Byrnes also saw to it that his policy of toughness with Russia at­
tracted wide attention. Beginning with the Iranian discussions in March,
the Secretary of State kept correspondents informed on an off-the-record
basis of the American position on all pending issues. He also continued
to report frequently and at length to the American people by radio on
his diplomatic activities, making no effort to conceal disagreements with
Moscow.10
9 The Council of Foreign Ministers’ meetings in Paris and New York are covered
in FR: 1946, Vol. 11, passim. For the Paris Peace Conference, see ibid,, Vols. Ill, IV,
passim; and Harold Nicolson’s literate assessment, “Peacemaking at Paris: Success,
Failure or Farce?” Foreign Affairs, XXV (January, 1947), 190—203. These negotia­
tions are conveniently summarized in Curry, Byrnes, chapters 7—9. Byrnes did agree to
two concessions on the Italian peace treaty: the Russians would be allowed to take
$100 million in reparations from Italy, and Trieste would be placed under United Na­
tions rather than Italian control. These arrangements in no way diminished Anglo-
American predominance in Italy, however, and gave the Russians substantially less
than what they had originally demanded. On this point, see Feis, From Trust to
Terror, pp. 121—25.
10 Vandenberg, ed., Private Papers, pp. 230, 309; Byrnes, Speaking Frankly, pp.
151, 236, 250—51. See also Westerfield, Foreign Policy and Party Politics, pp.
213—14; and Byrnes’s radio addresses of May 20, July 15, and October 19, 1946, De­
partment o f State Bulletin, XIV (June 2, 1946), 950—54, XV (July 28 and October
27, 1946), 167-72, 739-43.
To the Truman Doctrine 325

But the tedious deliberations in Paris and New York were largely a
sideshow: the important developments in Soviet-American relations dur­
ing the remainder of 1946 took place in Germany, where efforts to im­
plement the Potsdam Agreement had broken down; in the United N a­
tions, where the American plan for the international control of atomic
energy was under discussion; and in the Near East, where the Russians
seemed to be launching a new expansionist campaign. The principle of
“patience with firmness” governed the Administration’s handling of each
of these situations.
Washington’s position on the postwar treatment of Germany had be­
come clear by the time of the Potsdam Conference in July, 1945: the
United States would support the demilitarization, denazification, and
deindustrialization of the former Reich, but not to the point of causing
an economic collapse which might impair prospects for European recov­
ery and impose a heavy relief burden on American taxpayers. For this
reason, Byrnes had adamantly opposed Soviet demands for a fixed
amount of reparations, arguing that removals should be limited to what­
ever percentage of German resources was not needed to maintain a min­
imal standard of living. A compromise arrangement had finally been
worked out whereby the Russians agreed to satisfy their reparations re­
quirements by removals from their own zone, plus 10 percent of what­
ever capital equipment from other zones was “unnecessary for the Ger­
man peace economy.” In addition, the Soviet Union would get another
15 percent of such material from the West in return for an equivalent
value of food, coal, or other commodities from the Russian zone. The
four-power Allied Control Council, working under principles established
by the Allied Reparations Commission, would decide how much capital
equipment could be spared from the Western zones for reparations ship­
ments, both to the Soviet Union and to other claimants, subject to the
final approval of the zonal commander from whose territory the material
was taken.11
American diplomats did not regard this agreement as sanctioning the
dismemberment of Germany. The Potsdam protocol explicitly provided
that, as long as the occupation lasted, that country would be treated as
an economic unit. No German government would be formed for the pres-
11 Potsdam Conference protocol, August 1, 1945, FR: Potsdam, II, 1481—87. For
background on the Potsdam Agreement, see chapter 7.
326 To the Truman Doctrine

ent, but “certain essential central German administrative departments“

would be established to handle finance, transportation, communications,
foreign trade, and industry on a nationwide basis. In addition, Washing-
ton officials interpreted the agreement to mean that the occupying pow­
ers would have to work out a uniform formula for reparations removals
from all zones; otherwise, as Reparations Commissioner Pauley noted,
discrepancies from zone to zone would create wide differences in stand­
ards of living, thus violating the principle of economic unity. State De­
partment experts realized that in practice it might be easier to adminis­
ter the three Western zones as a unit than to agree on common policies
with the Russians, but they felt that the effort to achieve four-power
control should at least be made.12
As it turned out, however, the chief opposition to treating Germany
as an economic unit came not from the Russians but from the French.
France’s role in the occupation of Germany was anomalous: French rep­
resentatives had taken no part in the Potsdam deliberations, but at Yalta
five months earlier the Big Three had agreed to give France an occupa­
tion zone and a seat on the Allied Control Council. This placed the
Paris government in a position to veto implementation of whatever parts
of the Potsdam protocol it did not like. General de Gaulle, reflecting
French fears of a resurgent Germany, very strongly disliked the agree­
ment’s emphasis on economic unity and called for detachment of the
Rhineland and the Ruhr. If the Allies opposed him, de Gaulle let it be
known, France would have to protect itself by vetoing restoration of the
centralized German administrative agencies provided for in the Potsdam
accord. “It is a matter of life and death for us,” he told American Am­
bassador Jefferson Caffery; “for you, one interesting question among
many others.” 13
Throughout the last half of 1945, American officials regarded France
12 FR: Potsdam, II, 1483-84; Pauley to Clay, August II , 1945, PR: 1945, III,
1251—53; Gayton and Collado to Willard Thorp, August 16, 1945, FR: Potsdam, II,
938-40.
13 Caffery to Byrnes, November 3, 1945, FR: 1945, III, 890—91. See also ibid., pp.
842—45, 869—71, 878; Eisenhower to Marshall, October 13, 1945* Eisenhower MSS,
1916—52, Box 73; Clay, Decision in Germany, p. 39; Murphy, Diplomat among War­
riors, p. 287; and McNeill, America, Britain, and Russia, p. 627. John Gimbel, The
American Occupation o f Germany: Politics and the Military, 1945—1949, chapters
1—4, strongly emphasizes the importance of the French attitude.
To the Truman Doctrine 327

as the major obstacle to a settlement of the German question, but by the

end of February, 1946, growing concern over Russian intentions forced
them to view the problem in broader terms. Robert Murphy, General
Clay's political adviser in Germany, warned on February 24 that the So­
viet Union might be using the delay in implementing the Potsdam
Agreement to solidify its position in eastern Germany, with the idea of
later calling for a unified Reich under Russian auspices. Continued
French recalcitrance could well play into Moscow's hands. Murphy
thought it odd that the German Communist Party was opposing interna­
tionalization of the Ruhr while French Communists were supporting it,
and raised the possibility that both groups might be following orders
from Moscow. Centralized German economic agencies would have at
least partially broken down zonal boundaries, he pointed out, making it
difficult for the Russians to continue running their zone on a unilateral
basis. If the French continued to resist economic unification, Murphy
suggested, Washington should consider temporarily withholding cooper­
ation in other fields until a more favorable attitude developed.14
Murphy's analysis arrived in Washington three days after Kennan's
‘‘long telegram,” just as United States officials were undertaking their
fundamental réévaluation of policy toward the Soviet Union. H. Free­
man Matthews, director of the State Department's Office of European
Affairs, forwarded Murphy’s dispatch to Byrnes, noting that it added to
the economic reasons for establishing central German administrative
agencies “a compelling political reason for overcoming French obstruc­
tion, viz., that the Soviet Government and the German Communist
Party are making effective capital out of the present impasse by becom­
ing the champions of German unity.” The department also sent Mur­
phy's message to Kennan in Moscow, asking for his observations.15
Kennan agreed that the Russians welcomed French resistance to cen­
tral German agencies. There could be no doubt, he asserted, that
Maurice Thorez, leader of the French Communist Party, was acting ‘‘as
[a] Moscow stooge.” But Kennan warned that German economic unity
14 Murphy to Byrnes, February 24, 1946, FR: 1946, V, 505-7. See also Patterson
to Byrnes, February 25, 1946, summarized in Byrnes to Murphy, March 12, 1946,
ibid., pp. 524—25; Murphy to Forrestal, March 18, 1946, Forrestal MSS, Box 101;
and Murphy to Byrnes, March 19, 1946, FR: 1946, V, 527—28.
15 Matthews to Byrnes, February 28, 1946, FR: 1946, V, 508; Byrnes to Kennan,
February 27, 1946, cited ibid., p. 516«.
328 To the Truman Doctrine

would not necessarily weaken the Soviet position: the Russians would
agree to central agencies only if they thought they could control them,
and this could lead to the eventual communization of the entire country.
The real problem in Germany, Kennan contended, was the economic
chaos wrought by the Russians’ amputation of territory east of the
Oder-Neisse line. When the Americans and British agreed to this at
Potsdam, they destroyed whatever possibility existed for a unified and
sovereign Germany “fitted constructively into [the] pattern of western
European life.” Under the circumstances, there were only two alterna­
tives:
(1) to leave [the] remainder of Germany nominally united but extensively
vulnerable to Soviet political penetration and influence or (2) to carry to its
logical conclusion the process of partition which was begun in the east and
to endeavor to rescue [the] western zones of Germany by walling them
off against eastern penetration and integrating them into [the] inter­
national pattern of western Europe rather than into a united Germany.16
Kennan’s analysis pinpointed the delicate and perplexing situation
confronting American officials in Germany early in 1946. French oppo­
sition to German economic unity threatened not only to make the divi­
sion of that country permanent but to place upon the United States the
burden of supporting the food-deficient Western zones. But centralized
German agencies, as Kennan pointed out, could fall under Russian con­
trol, giving Moscow an opportunity to dominate all Germany. Com­
pared to this, a permanently divided Reich seemed the lesser of two
evils. The United States could hardly commit itself to either centraliza­
tion or dismemberment until Stalin’s goals became clearer. But Wash­
ington did launch a series of diplomatic initiatives in the spring of 1946
designed to smoke out Russian intentions in Germany, while leaving
open the possibility of moving in either direction.
On April 29, 1946, Byrnes proposed to the Council of Foreign Minis­
ters, meeting in Paris, a four-power treaty guaranteeing the disarmament
of Germany for the next twenty-five years. Senator Vandenberg had
originally suggested such a pact in January, 1945, as a means of con­
vincing the Russians that they did not have to take over Eastern Europe
in order to gain security from future attack. Administration officials had
16 Kennan to Byrnes, March 6, 1946, FR: 1946, V, 516—20. See also Kennan to
Carmel Offie, May 10, 1946, ibid., pp. 555—56.
To the Truman Doctrine 329

considered the idea off and on during the summer of 1945, and Byrnes
had casually mentioned it to the Russians at both London and Moscow.
The Secretary of State decided to push the four-power accord at Paris as
a test of Soviet objectives in Germany. He explained to Molotov that
“frankly, there were many people in the United States who were unable
to understand the exact aim of the Soviet Union— whether it was a
search for security or expansionism. Such a treaty as had been proposed
and also the similar treaty suggested for Japan he had felt would effec­
tively take care of the question of security/* Vandenberg, who was at­
tending the Paris Conference as a member of the American delegation,
put the matter more bluntly in his diary: “If and when Molotov finally
refuses this offer, he will confess that he wants expansion and not ‘secu­
rity.* . . . Then moral conscience all around the globe can face and as­
sess the realities— and prepare for the consequences.**17
Four days after Byrnes made his proposal in Paris, General Clay an­
nounced the suspension of further reparations shipments from the
American zone until the four occupying powers agreed to treat Germany
as an economic unit. This action was aimed in part at the French, whose
stubborn resistance to central German agencies had delayed economic
unification. But American officials now viewed their difficulties with
France in the larger context of deteriorating relations with the Soviet
Union: Stalin, they felt, had been surreptitiously supporting the French
stand all along because it allowed him to remain committed to the prin­
ciple of a unified Germany while operating his zone on a unilateral
basis. These suspicions seemed confirmed early in April when Soviet rep­
resentatives on the Allied Control Council had proclaimed their unwill­
ingness to implement a common import-export program for all of Ger-
17 Bohlen memorandum, Byrnes-Molotov conversation, April 28, 1946, FR: 1946,
II, 146—47; Vandenberg Diary, April 29, 1946, Vandenberg, ed., Private Papers, p.
268. For background on the four-power treaty, see Vandenberg’s speech in the Con­
gressional Record, January 10, 1945, pp. 164—67; Grenville Clark to Truman, June 2,
1945, copy in Hopkins MSS, Box 331; FR: Potsdam, I, 162-63, 450-52; FR: 1945,
II, 267—68, III, 527—31; Byrnes, Speaking Frankly, pp. 171—76. The text of the pro­
posed treaty is in FR: 1946, II, 190—93. An unidentified member of the American
delegation at Paris— possibly Vandenberg— explained the strategy behind Byrnes’s
proposal as follows: “If they [the Russians] are sincere in their intentions toward the
rest of the world, they must sign. If they are not and refuse to sign, it will make them
appear an outlaw nation before the eyes of the world.” (New York Times, April 30,
1946. )
330 To the Truman Doctrine

many until reparations deliveries had been completed. Clay’s order to

halt removals from the American zone would, as Undersecretary of State
Acheson explained, “put Soviet protestations of loyalty to Potsdam to
[the] final test and fix blame for [the] breach of Potsdam on [the] So­
viets in case they fail to meet this test.” 18
Moscow’s response to these initiatives did nothing to relieve American
suspicions. After a delay of two months, Molotov on July 9 rejected
Byrnes’s proposed treaty on the grounds that demilitarization could not
be guaranteed until all reparations deliveries had been completed. The
Soviet foreign minister then revived the original Russian demand for a
fixed sum of $10 billion, to which, he claimed, Roosevelt had agreed at
Yalta, and vigorously condemned the “unlawful” action of General Clay
in halting removals from the American zone. On the following day Mo­
lotov came out against detachment of the Ruhr from Germany, blandly
disclaiming any Russian intention to stand in the way of the “rightful
aspirations” of the German people or to wreck their economy. American
officials regarded this contradictory series of statements as a blatant at­
tempt to extract maximum reparations while at the same time posing as
a defender of German economic unity. Byrnes now became convinced
that the Russians would never allow implementation of the Potsdam ac­
cords, and from this time on moved toward the concept of a divided
Germany as the only alternative to a Russian-dominated Reich.19
After careful consultation with the President, congressional leaders,
and military and diplomatic advisers, the Secretary of State announced a
18 Acheson to Byrnes, May 9, 1946, FR: 1946, V, 549. For background on Clay's
decision, see Murphy to Byrnes, April 4, 10, and May 6, 1946, ibid., pp. 547—48.
Clay's order terminating reparations shipments has been the source of some confusion.
Clay himself, writing in retrospect, pictured it as a move designed to force the Rus­
sians to comply with the Potsdam Agreement (Decision in Germany, pp. 120—25), an
interpretation subsequently stressed by William H. McNeill {America, Britain, and
Russia, p. 726). John Gimbel, on the basis of American military government records,
argues that Clay's decision at the time was directed primarily at the French, and came
to be viewed as an anti-Russian move only after the Cold War had developed. {The
American Occupation o f Germany, pp. 56—61.) Department of State records unavail­
able when Gimbel was writing his book make it clear, however, that American officials
at that time saw the move primarily as a means of testing Russian commitment to the
principle of German economic unity, and that they viewed difficulties with France in
the light of the emerging Soviet-American confrontation. {FR: 1946, V, 549—56.)
19 Molotov statements of July 9 and 10, 1946, FR: 1946, II, 842—47, 869—73. See
also Byrnes, Speaking Frankly, pp. 179—81.
To the Truman Doctrine 331

new United States policy on Germany in a speech delivered at Stuttgart

on September 6, 1946. Byrnes reiterated American support for the prin­
ciple of economic unity, but added this significant qualification: “If com­
plete unification cannot be secured, we shall do everything in our power
to secure maximum possible unification/' Repeating an offer made at the
Paris Foreign Ministers’ Conference in July, Byrnes expressed willingness
to merge the American zone economically with any or all other zones.
He also endorsed movement toward political unification by calling for
establishment of a German provisional government. The Secretary of
State made it clear, however, that Washington would not tolerate a uni­
fied Germany under Soviet control: “We do not want Germany to be­
come the satellite of any power.” Hence, “as long as there is an occupa­
tion army in Germany, American armed forces will be part of that
occupation army.” 20
Byrnes’s Stuttgart speech represented an important reversal of the
American position on Germany. Since the early days of World War II,
State Department planners had fought tenaciously for the principle of
economic unity, defending it successfully against Morgenthau and other
advocates of vengeance. But the reorientation of policy toward Russia
early in 1946 threw new light on the German question: American dip­
lomats gradually came to realize that unification could pose serious dan­
gers if it brought about an expansion of Soviet power. Since the Russians
had made it clear that they would permit a consolidation of zones only
on their terms, Washington officials decided to accept the division of
Germany as the least distasteful of several unpalatable alternatives.
Byrnes had called the Russians* bluff in Germany, Truman explained to
Joseph Davies several days after the Stuttgart address; now “Britain and
the United States would have to go along without them.” 21
The President and his advisers also had to confront unpalatable alter­
natives in dealing with atomic energy. Policy-makers in this field hoped
to devise a scientifically sound method for detecting clandestine rearma­
ment which would be flexible enough to overcome Soviet suspicions, yet
sufficiently rigorous to ward off congressional criticism. The task proved
to be an impossible one. As distrust of Russia grew during 1946, the Ad-
20 Department o f State Bulletin, XV (September 15, 1946), 496—501.
21 Davies memorandum of conversation with Truman, September 10, 1946, Davies
MSS, Box 24.
332 To the Truman Doctrine

ministration began to shape its policy, not according to what the Rus­
sians might accept, but in terms of what Congress would not condemn.
Just as Washington had come to favor a divided Germany to the pros­
pect of a unified Reich under Soviet control, so it came to prefer the risk
of a nuclear arms race to the possibility that an imperfect control system
might endanger American security.
Early in January, 1946, Secretary of State Byrnes had appointed a
committee headed by Undersecretary of State Acheson to draw up spe­
cific proposals on international control which the United States could
place before the United Nations Atomic Energy Commission. Acheson’s
group in turn recruited a board of consultants under the direction of
David E. Lilienthal, chairman of the Tennessee Valley Authority, to sift
workable recommendations from the masses of technical data available.
The consultants* task, Lilienthal wrote in his journal, was “to develop a
position, based on facts not now known by our political officers, that will
‘work,* and have a good chance of being accepted, especially by
Russia.'*22
The Acheson-Lilienthal report recommended establishment under the
United Nations of an international “Atomic Development Authority’*
which would, after a worldwide survey of raw materials, assume control
of all highly concentrated uranium and thorium deposits. The authority
would make its resources available for peaceful purposes only. Any unap­
proved use of fissionable materials by a particular nation would be re­
garded as a danger signal, giving other countries sufficient time to pre­
pare themselves for possible attack. Under the plan the United States
reserved for itself the decision as to when or whether to stop manufac­
turing atomic bombs of its own. Byrnes submitted the report to Presi­
dent Truman on March 21, 1946, and, after a series of inadvertent leaks,
formally released it to the public on March 28.23
In an effort to make the Acheson-Lilienthal recommendations more
palatable to a skeptical Congress, Truman and Byrnes decided to entrust
Bernard M. Baruch with the task of presenting the American proposal
to the United Nations. Baruch, then seventy-six, was a native of South
22 Hewlett and Anderson, The New World, pp. 531—34; Lilienthal Journal, January
24, 1946, hilienthal Journals, II, 14.
23 Hewlett and Anderson, The New World, pp. 540—58; Acheson, Present at the
Creation, pp. 151—54.
To the Truman Doctrine 333

Carolina who by the age of thirty had made himself a millionaire

through cagey stock market investments. After serving as chairman of
the W ar Industries Board in World War I, he devoted much of his en­
ergy to financing favorite politicians, an activity which understandably
made him popular in Congress, and to nurturing carefully his public
image as a park-bench philosopher and adviser to presidents. David Lil­
ienthal described him in 1944 as “a shrewd, smart, and experienced old
boy. . . . He likes to have his finger in all the pies, working by remote
control, so that if things go wrong he doesn’t have to take the responsi­
bility. And about the vainest old man I have ever seen.” Baruch’s ap­
pointment astonished and disappointed the technical experts who had
helped prepare the Acheson-Lilienthal report, but Truman and Byrnes
clearly expected the septuagenarian’s great prestige to enhance the plan’s
political acceptability.24
Baruch surprised Administration officials, however, by demanding the
right to make changes in the Acheson-Lilienthal proposal before present­
ing it to the United Nations. The report was "pretty close” to govern­
ment policy, he complained to Truman on March 26, yet he had had no
hand in formulating it. When reporters outside the White House ques­
tioned him on the document, Baruch ostentatiously turned off his
hearing aid. Both Truman and Byrnes went out of their way to assure
him that the Acheson-Lilienthal recommendation was not the final
United States position, and that Baruch and his own staff would have
opportunities to make their views known. Baruch chose as his advisers
not the scientists who had helped to prepare the report but a group of
Wall Street bankers who knew little of the intricacies of atomic en­
ergy.25
Since the proposed international control agency would derive its au­
thority from the Security Council, Baruch feared that any permanent
member of the Council could veto its action. Therefore, he felt, use of
the veto should be prohibited when the Security Council was considering
24 “Bernard M. Baruch,” Current Biography, 1950, pp. 14—17; Lilienthal Journal,
February 13, 1944, Lilienthal Journals, I, 625. For the reaction to Baruch’s appoint­
ment, see ibid., II, 30; and Acheson, Present at the Creation, p. 154.
25 Baruch to Truman, March 26, 1946, printed in Truman, Years o f Trial and
Hope, pp. 8—9; Byrnes to Baruch, April 19, 1946, ibid., pp. 9—10; Hewlett and An­
derson, The New World, pp. 556—58. Truman charged in his memoirs that Baruch’s
main concern was to see that he received sufficient public recognition.
334 To the Truman Doctrine

atomic energy matters. Defenders of the Acheson-Lilienthal report re­

plied that this suggestion could only lessen the chances of Soviet accept­
ance, while contributing nothing to American security. Any nation
which tried to veto Security Council action in this field, they argued,
would automatically be presumed guilty of secretly building atomic
bombs. By threatening to resign, however, Baruch forced Truman and
Byrnes to accept his point of view. Having employed Baruch in order to
take advantage of his personal prestige, the Administration felt it could
not dismiss him without undermining the credibility of the whole “get
tough with Russia” campaign. Baruch’s appointment was “the worst
mistake I have ever made,” Byrnes confided to Acheson, “but we can’t
fire him now, not with all the other trouble.” 26
On June 14, 1946, Baruch presented the American proposal on inter­
national control to the United Nations in characteristically apocalyptic
language (“We are here to make a choice between the quick and the
dead”). The plan followed the main outlines of the Acheson-Lilienthal
report except for Baruch’s insistence on exempting the Atomic Develop­
ment Authority from the Security Council veto. The Russian delegate,
Andrei Gromyko, immediately attacked Baruch’s proposal as an attempt
to undermine big-power unity in the Security Council, and suggested in­
stead the immediate destruction of all atomic weapons. The United
States rejected the Russian plan because of its failure to provide safe­
guards. Debate dragged on until December 30, 1946, when the United
Nations Atomic Energy Commission adopted the Baruch Plan by a
10—0 vote, with the Soviet Union and Poland abstaining. This merely
transferred the dispute to the Security Council, where the Russian veto
prevented adoption of the United States proposal.27
The Soviet Union’s rejection of the Baruch Plan came as no great sur­
prise to American officials. Ambassador Walter Bedell Smith had
warned from Moscow as early as April, 1946, that the Russians had no
interest in a workable international control system and were counting
26 Draft by Fred Searls of Baruch letter to Byrnes, March 31, 1946, Baruch MSS,
United Nations Atomic Energy Commission file, section 1; Baruch memoranda of con­
versations with Byrnes and Truman, June 7, 1946, ibid.; Baruch, The Public Years,
pp. 346—47; Lilienthal Journal, June 13, December 29, 1946, Lilienthal Journals, II,
59, 124-25.
27 For an extended summary of the United Nations debate on atomic eneigy, see
Hewlett and Anderson, The New World, pp. 576—618.
To the Truman Doctrine 335

on producing their own bombs, relying in the meantime on domestic po­

litical constraints within the United States to keep the Truman Adminis­
tration from employing “atomic blackmail.” The only control system
which Moscow would accept, Smith argued, would be one which fur­
nished Soviet scientists with full technical data on the making of bombs,
with no restrictions as to the use of such information.28 Neither the
Acheson-Lilienthal report nor the final proposal which Baruch made to
the United Nations came anywhere close to meeting this requirement;
both provided that until the control plan went into effect, the United
States would retain its monopoly over nuclear weapons. Hence, Baruch's
insistence on abolishing the veto almost certainly did not, in itself,
wreck prospects for international control.
The real problem was that American leaders, by the summer of 1946,
simply were no longer willing to trust the Russians. “We should not
under any circumstances throw away our gun,” Truman told Baruch,
“until we are sure that the rest of the world can't arm against us.” Even
former Secretary of W ar Henry L. Stimson, who had originally proposed
seeking a control agreement with the Soviet Union, had by this time
changed his mind. “The time has passed for handling the bomb in the
way I suggested to the President last summer,” he wrote to Baruch in
June. By September, Stimson was telling Forrestal that the United States
should not delay in making as many “atomic missiles” as possible. Ba­
ruch himself showed little disappointment over the Russian attitude. “If
we have made every effort to reach an agreement,” he commented in
August, “we can then face a break with a clear conscience.” Above all,
there could be no compromise: “This problem [is] far too important to
do any trading about.” 29 As in the case of Germany, the United States
would still seek a settlement with the Russians on the international con­
trol of atomic energy, but only on American terms. If the Russians failed
to accept these, Washington was prepared to face with equanimity the
prospect of a divided world.
28 Smith to Byrnes, April 28, 1946, FR: 1946, VI, 749.
29 Truman to Baruch, July 10, 1946, quoted in Truman, Years o f Trial and Hope,
p. 11; Stimson to Baruch, June 18, 1946, Stimson MSS, Box 432; Forrestal Diary,
September 11, 1946, Millis, ed., The Forrestal Diaries, pp. 199—200; Baruch com­
ments at a meeting of the United States and Canadian delegations to the United Na­
tions Atomic Energy Commission, August 1, 1946, Baruch MSS, United Nations
Atomic Energy Commission file, section 1.
336 To the Truman Doctrine

The outbreak of a new crisis in the eastern Mediterranean in August,

1946, made clear the extent of Washington’s commitment to an uncom­
promising policy. On August 7, the Russians requested a revision of the
Montreux Convention to allow for joint Turkish-Soviet defense of the
Dardanelles. American officials viewed this move as the culmination of a
long effort by Moscow to establish naval bases in Turkey, a development
which they feared might make that country a Soviet satellite. Edwin C.
Wilson, the United States ambassador in Ankara, warned the State De­
partment that if Turkey fell under Russian control, the way would be
open for a Soviet advance into the Persian Gulf and the Suez Canal
area. “Once this happens [the] fat is in the fire again.” 30
Washington officials agreed. Truman’s top military and diplomatic
advisers concluded that the Soviet note clearly reflected a desire to domi­
nate Turkey, and that if Moscow succeeded, it would be “extremely diffi­
cult, if not impossible” for the United States to keep the Russians from
gaining control of Greece and all of the Near and Middle East. Only the
conviction that the United States was prepared to use force would deter
the Kremlin: “The time has come when we must decide that we shall
resist with all means at our disposal any Soviet aggression.” At a meet­
ing on August 15, Truman endorsed this conclusion with such alacrity
that General Eisenhower, then Army Chief of Staff, politely asked
whether the Chief Executive realized that this position could lead to war
if the Russians did not back down. Truman surprised Eisenhower by de­
livering a brief but impressive lecture on the strategic significance of the
Black Sea straits, leaving no doubt that he understood fully the ominous
implications of the memorandum he had just approved. The Administra­
tion strongly encouraged the Turks to resist the Russian demands and, to
back them up, dispatched units of the American fleet to the eastern
Mediterranean. One month later Secretary Forrestal announced that the
Navy would henceforth maintain a permanent presence in that part of
the world.31
30 W ilson to Byrnes, August 12, 1946, FR: 1946, VII, 837. For the Russian rote of
August 7, 1946, see ibid., pp. 827—29. For background on the growing American
concern about the Soviet ambitions in the Near East, see the comprehensive memoran­
dum by Loy W. Henderson, head of the State Department's Office of Near Eastern Af­
fairs, dated December 28, 1945, ibid., pp. 1—6.
31 Acheson to Byrnes, August 15, 1946, FR: 1946, VII, 840—42. See also the For­
restal Diary, August 15 and September 30, 1946, Millis, ed.. The Forrestal Diaries,
To the Truman Doctrine 337

In face of these maneuvers, the Russians dropped their demands for

bases in the Dardanelles, thus averting a major confrontation. The epi­
sode was significant, though, for it showed that the Truman Administra­
tion was now willing to risk war if necessary in order to block further
Soviet expansion. Washington officials now agreed, for the most part, on
the need for a firm policy. Whether the American people were prepared
to make the sacrifices necessary to carry out such a policy, however, was
another question. Forrestal worried that the nation's armed forces lacked
the strength to sustain the President's position, and called for a cam­
paign to arouse an apathetic public to the dangers of the situation. Clark
Clifford's September, 1946, memorandum made the same point: “Only a
well-informed public will support the stern policies which Soviet activi­
ties make imperative and which the United States government must
adopt.''*32 Implementation of the strategy of “containment” had already
begun, but the Truman Administration still faced the task of persuad­
ing the American people to bear the burdens which this course of action
would entail.

m
The Truman Administration's new policy of toughness toward Russia
underwent two internal challenges during the summer and fall of 1946,
both launched by groups which had not yet accommodated themselves
fully to the realities of the postwar international environment. A dwin­
dling band of popular front liberals, convinced that Roosevelt's policy of
cooperation with the Soviet Union still offered the best hope for world
peace, vigorously condemned Truman's uncompromising stand. A far
larger group of Americans, though they favored firmness with Moscow,
threatened to deprive the Administration of the means to carry out such
a policy by calling for a return to the military and economic practices of
pp. 192, 211; Truman, Years o f Trial and Hope, p. 97; Acheson, Present at the Crea­
tion, pp. 195—96; and Phillips, The Truman Presidency, pp. 170—71. In a conversa­
tion on August 20, 1946, Acheson assured Lord Inverchapel, the British ambassador,
that the Administration regarded the Turkish crisis with the utmost seriousness and
was prepared to go to war if necessary to defend the Turks. (FR: 1946, VII, 849—50.)
32 Forrestal Diary, August 15 and 23, 1946, Millis, ed., The Forrestal Diaries, pp.
192, 196—97; Clifford memorandum quoted in Krock, Memoirs, p. 482.
338 To the Truman Doctrine

pre-World War II isolationism. Both challenges had to be overcome be­

fore the Administration could begin to devise long-range plans to coun­
teract what it saw as the Soviet “menace.”
American liberals found themselves torn between conflicting impulses
in reacting to the new “get tough with Russia” policy. Many of them
still operated under the assumption that fascism represented the only sig­
nificant threat to American democracy, and found it difficult to criticize
a nation like the Soviet Union which had fought Hitler so effectively.
While few liberals tried to defend Russian behavior in Eastern Europe
and the Near East, they detected little difference between these actions
and the British imperialism which Truman had apparently endorsed by
joining Churchill at Fulton. Molotov’s refusal to sign Byrnes’s twenty-
five-year German disarmament pact puzzled liberals, however, as did
Moscow’s rejection of the Baruch Plan. Moreover, a few influential liber­
als had begun to worry that American communists might try to infil­
trate their movement in order to promote the Kremlin’s interests. As a
result, liberal opinion regarding Russia was in a state of flux in the sum­
mer of 1946.33
Since the death of Roosevelt, Henry A. Wallace, formerly secretary of
agriculture and vice-president, now secretary of commerce, had emerged
as the most influential single leader of the liberal community. Despite
his position in the cabinet, Wallace did not hesitate to speak out on for­
eign policy. In a series of public statements during the spring of 1946,
he criticized Churchill’s Fulton address, warned of the dangers of an
atomic armaments race, and, to the extreme irritation of Secretary of
State Byrnes, called for dismantling an American military base in Ice­
land. The Secretary of Commerce also sent two confidential letters to
Truman, one of them twelve pages long, arguing that the Russians had
justifiable reasons for fearing the United States and advocating new ap­
proaches to Moscow by liberalizing the Baruch Plan and extending a
loan to promote Soviet-American trade. Truman ignored the first letter
33 Alonzo L. Hamby, "Henry A. Wallace, the Liberals, and Soviet-American Rela­
tions,” Review o f Politics, XXX (April, 1968), 154—57; Hamby, "Harry S. Truman
and American Liberalism, 1945—1948” (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of
Missouri, 1965), pp. 85—87, 107—8; James Reston in the New York Times, May 6,
1946; Alfred Baker Lewis to James Loeb, Jr., and Reinhold Niebuhr, April 16, 1946,
Niebuhr MSS, Box 12; Loeb letter to the editor. New Republic, CXIV (May 13,
1946), 699.
To the Truman Doctrine 339

and sent only a perfunctory reply to the second one. At this point, late
in the summer of 1946, Wallace resolved to resign from the cabinet
following the November election, but in the meantime he agreed to
campaign for the Democratic Party. His first speech, on foreign policy,
was scheduled before a joint meeting of the National Citizens Political
Action Committee and the Independent Citizens Committee of the
Arts, Sciences, and Professions at Madison Square Garden on the
night of September 1 2 ,1946.34
Stripped of its rhetoric, Wallace's address was an uncharacteristically
realistic plea for recognition that the world was now divided into politi­
cal spheres of influence: “We should recognize that we have no more
business in the political affairs of Eastern Europe than Russia has in the
political affairs of Latin America, Western Europe and the United
States." Wallace did express the hope that there could still be an open
door for trade throughout the world, including Eastern Europe. Eco­
nomic contacts, in his view, could lessen tensions which political divi­
sions had created. The Secretary of Commerce sternly lectured both the
British and the Russians: London should give up its “imperialistic" poli­
cies, while Moscow “should stop teaching that [its] form of communism
must, by force if necessary, ultimately triumph over democratic capital­
ism.” Both countries, he argued, could learn a lesson from Roosevelt's
Good Neighbor policy. Ironically, in view of subsequent events, W al­
lace's predominantly left-wing audience hissed and booed his critical
comments about Russia, and the Daily Worker at first strongly con­
demned his position.35
The rhetoric in Wallace's speech attracted more attention than its
substance, however, for in what seemed to be a direct slap at Adminis­
tration policy, he proclaimed: “We are reckoning with a force which
cannot be handled successfully by a ‘Get tough with Russia' policy. ‘Get­
ting tough' never bought anything real and lasting—whether for
schoolyard bullies or businessmen or world powers. The tougher we get,
34 Hamby, “Harry S. Truman,” pp. 19—21; Hamby, “Henry A. Wallace,” pp.
157—59; Truman, Year o f Decisions, pp. 555—57. For Byrnes's irritation regarding
Wallace’s statements, see Millis, ed., The Forrestal Diaries, pp. 154—55; and Vanden-
berg, ed.. Private Papers, p. 266.
35 The text of Wallace’s speech is in Vital-Speeches, X II (October 1, 1946),
738—41. On reaction to the speech, see the New York Times, September 13, 1946;
and Hamby, “Henry A. Wallace,” p. 160.
340 To the Truman Doctrine

the tougher the Russians will get.” Then came the shocker: “Just: two
days ago, when President Truman read these words, he said that they
represented the policy of his administration/’ Reaction was sharp and in­
stantaneous. The next day Arthur Krock listed at least six points on
which Wallace’s speech conflicted with Truman’s foreign policy. New
York Times correspondent Harold Callendar reported from the Paris
Peace Conference that Wallace’s address had “cut the ground from
under the foreign policy that Mr. Byrnes had labored for a year to de­
velop.” Senator Vandenberg rumbled ominously that Republicans could
only cooperate “with one Secretary of State at a time.” 36
Truman’s efforts to explain the situation only compounded the confu­
sion. Wallace had shown the President a copy of his speech on Septem­
ber 10, emphasizing its critical remarks about Russia. Truman, after a
cursory scanning of the text, had made no objections. In a press confer­
ence on the 12th, the President had told reporters who had seen Wal­
lace’s prepared text that the policies advocated by the Secretary of Com­
merce and the Secretary of State were “exactly in line.” Two days after
the Madison Square Garden address, Truman tried to quiet growing crit­
icism by issuing a “clarifying” statement maintaining that he had ap­
proved Wallace’s right to give the speech, but not the content of it. On
September 16, Wallace proclaimed his intention to make further state­
ments on foreign policy. This provoked Secretary of State Byrnes, still in
Paris, into threatening immediate resignation unless Truman muzzled
Wallace. After further hesitation, the President on September 20 an­
nounced that he had asked the Secretary of Commerce to resign.37
The Truman-Wallace-Byrnes imbroglio was an important test of the
Administration’s commitment to its new policy of toughness with Rus­
sia. Still the leader of the liberal wing of the Democratic Party, Wallace
was no ordinary cabinet member. By firing him, Truman cut the last of
his tenuous ties to the liberals less than two months before the congres-
36 Vital Speeches, X II (October I, 1946), 739; New York Times, September 13,
15, 1946.
37 A full account of the events of September 12—20, 1946, is in Curry, Byrnes, pp.
253—72, but see also Schapsmeier, Prophet in Politics, chapter 10; Truman, Year o f
Decisions, pp. 557—60; Byrnes, All in One Lifetime, pp. 370—76; Millis, ed., The
Porrestal Diaries, pp. 206—10; Acheson, Present at the Creation, pp. 190—92; and
Phillips, The Truman Presidency, pp. 148—52.
To the Truman Doctrine 341

sional elections. But the alternative would have been not simply the res­
ignation of Byrnes as secretary of state. Keeping Wallace on would have
alienated Vandenberg and brought about the collapse of bipartisan unity
on foreign policy. It would have given Republicans a magnificent oppor­
tunity to base their fall campaign on the charge that Democrats were
“soft” on communism. It would also have meant repudiating a course of
action which Truman himself strongly believed to be right. Angering
liberals by removing Wallace was the lesser evil, hence it is not surpris­
ing that the President acted as he did.
The other major internal challenge to Truman’s diplomatic strategy
grew out of a surprisingly tenacious strain of isolationism which still af­
fected the thinking of a large number of Americans and their representa­
tives in Congress. These people believed, or at least hoped, that the
United States could return to the small military establishment and low
taxes of the prewar period without significantly endangering national se­
curity. Unlike the Wallace situation, the threat which this attitude posed
to the Administration’s “get tough with Russia” policy was much too
deeply rooted to be blunted by the simple expedient of firing a member
of the cabinet.
Demands for immediate demobilization had continued to intensify
throughout the first part of 1946. Top civilian and military officials tried
to counteract this pressure by launching a public campaign for retention
of the draft and universal military training. President Truman told the
nation in April that it would be “a tragic breach of national duty and
international faith” if the American people failed to accept the responsi­
bilities of leadership which went with their position as the strongest
country in the world. The Administration did manage to secure an ex­
tension of the Selective Service Act in June, but one year later Congress
allowed the draft to expire completely. Meanwhile, a potent combina­
tion of religious, pacifist, educational, farm, and labor organizations kept
the proposal for universal military training from ever receiving serious
consideration. “It looks as if Congress is determined to disarm us,” Elmer
Davis wrote to Bernard Baruch, “whether anybody else disarms or not.”
Not until Americans had suffered the repeated shocks of the Czechoslo­
vak coup, the Berlin blockade, the Soviet atomic bomb, the fall of
China, and the Korean W ar would they bring themselves to accept a
342 To the Truman Doctrine

large peacetime military establishment as a normal state of affairs.38

The Administration also had to overcome isolationist tendencies in
the field of economics before it could implement a policy of contain­
ment. The war had left vast areas of the world devastated. Government
leaders knew that the economies of these regions could not revive with­
out outside help, which only the United States could provide. Failure to
furnish this assistance would not only damage the American economy by
leaving the United States with few foreign markets; it would also breed
conditions in those countries which would promote the spread of com­
munism. President Truman summarized the arguments for American
foreign economic aid as follows:
W e shall help because we know that we ourselves cannot enjoy prosperity
in a world of economic stagnation. W e shall help because economic distress,
anywhere in the world, is a fertile breeding ground for violent political up­
heaval. And we shall help because we feel it is right to lend a hand to our
friends and allies who are recovering from wounds inflicted by our common
enemy.39
Whether the American people would be willing to provide such assist­
ance, however, was very much in doubt. Traditional distrust of foreign­
ers still existed, compounded by the memory that only Finland among
America's former allies had not defaulted on its World W ar I debts.
Having generously furnished lend-lease to fight the common enemy in
World War II, Americans, yearning for normalcy, found it difficult to
see why they should do more.
The Administration's lengthy fight to secure congressional approval of
a $3.75 billion loan to Great Britain during the first half of 1946 made
this attitude painfully obvious. Opposition to the loan stemmed from a
variety of sources: old-fashioned Anglophobia, fear that the loan would
support socialism or imperialism, doubt as to whether the British would
repay the loan, Zionist opposition to British policy in Palestine, suspi­
cion that the loan would set a precedent for assistance to other countries,
especially Russia. In a series of public speeches Undersecretary of State
38 Truman Army Day speech, April 6, 1946, Truman Public Papers: 1946, p. 186;
Davis to Baruch, May 20, 1946, Baruch MSS, UNAEC file, section 1: “Atomic En­
ergy: Miscellaneous Suggestions” folder. See also Samuel P. Huntington, The Common
Defense: Strategic Programs in National Politics, pp. 33—64.
39 Truman speech of April 6, 1946, Truman Public Papers: 1946, p. 189.
To the Truman Doctrine 343

Acheson repeatedly tried to picture the loan as part of a larger

situation— the necessity to revive world trade— but without much
success. In the end Congress approved the loan chiefly because the Ad­
ministration said it was necessary to fight communism.40
Acheson described the dilemma facing American policy-makers in a
little-noticed speech to the Associated Harvard Clubs in Boston on June
4, 1946. The most important task in conducting American foreign pol­
icy, he maintained, was “focusing the will of 140,000,000 people on
problems beyond our shores . . . [when] people are focusing on 140,-
000,000 other things.” This problem had greatly contributed to Ameri­
can difficulties in asserting moral, military, and economic leadership in
the postwar world:
[It lies] at the root of the hysteria which has wrought such havoc with our
armed services, and continues to do so. [It lies] at the root, also, of the
difficulty which we have in using our great economic power, in our own
interest, to hasten recovery in other countries along lines which are essential
to our own system. . . . The slogans “Bring the boys home!” and “D ont
be Santa Claus!” are not among our more gifted or thoughtful contributions
to the creation of a free and tranquil world.
Americans were not well prepared for world leadership: “We believe
that any problem can be solved with a little ingenuity and without in­
convenience to the folks at large.” The problems of the postwar world
were not like this. “ [For] all our lives the danger, the uncertainty, the
need for alertness, for effort, for discipline will be upon u s .. . . We are
in for it and the only real question is whether we shall know it soon
enough.” 41
The outcome of the November, 1946, congressional elections further
discouraged those who had hoped for a more cooperative attitude toward
foreign policy questions on Capitol Hill. Taking advantage of a combi-
40 Newsweek, XXVII (February 11, 1946), 20; Vandenberg, ed.. Private Papers, pp.
230—31; Department o f State Bulletin, XIV (March 31, May 5, 26, 1946), 511—14,
759—60, 893—94, 914; Frank McNaughton to Time home office, July 13, 1946,
McNaughton MSS; Congressional Record, July 13, 1946, p. 8915. The fight over the
British loan killed whatever slim chances still remained that the Administration might
grant a loan to the Soviet Union. On this point see George F. Luth ringer to Clayton,
May 23, 1946, FR: 1946, VI, 842—43; John H. Crider in the New York Times, July
21, 1946; and Herring, “Aid to Russia, 1941—1946,” chapter 9.
41 Department o f State Bulletin, XIV (June 16, 1946), 1045—47.
344 To the Truman Doctrine

nation of circumstances— accumulated grievances after thirteen years

of Democratic rule, the trauma of reconversion to a peacetime economy,
lack of firm leadership from the White House, recurrent labor troubles,
the meat shortage, the Wallace affair— Republicans gained control of
both the Senate and the House of Representatives for the first time since
1930. The G.O.P. victory initially did not seem to threaten the biparti­
san foreign policy which Truman and Byrnes had worked out with Van­
denberg. The Michigan senator, who now became chairman of the Sen­
ate Foreign Relations Committee and president pro tempore of the
Senate, continued to speak for Republicans on foreign affairs while Sena­
tor Robert A. Taft of Ohio, whose inclinations lay in a more isolationist
direction than Vandenberg’s, deliberately concentrated on domestic mat­
ters. It quickly became clear, however, that external and internal prob­
lems could not be so neatly divided: the conservative domestic program
of Taft and Speaker of the House Joseph W. Martin posed a clear threat
to the internationalist foreign policy which Vandenberg and the Admin­
istration supported.42
Republican candidates had campaigned in 1946 on a platform pledg­
ing to reduce income taxes by 20 percent, cut government spending, and
raise tariffs. When the Eightieth Congress convened in January, 1947,
G.O.P. leaders made it clear that they intended to fulfill these promises.
But across-the-board tax cuts, spending reductions, and tariff increases
seemed likely to undermine the foundations of Administration foreign
policy, now based on the principles of maintaining sufficient military
force to counter overt Soviet aggression, while at the same time extend­
ing economic aid to nations threatened by communism from within. Re­
publican pledges, if implemented, would limit the Administration’s abil­
ity to put its new Russian policy into effect.43
President Truman asked the Eightieth Congress on January 10, 1947,
for $37.7 billion to finance government operations for the fiscal year be­
ginning July 1, of which $11.2 billion was to go for national defense.
But on February 14, the Joint Congressional Committee on the Legisla­
tive Budget recommended a budget ceiling of $31.5 billion. This in­
volved cutting appropriations for the Army by $1 billion, the Navy by
42 Vandenberg, ed.. Private Papers, pp. 318—19; Ernest K. Lindley, “Republican D i­
viding Line,’*Newsweek, XXIX (March 3, 1947), 26.
43 Jones, The Fifteen Weeks, pp. 90—91, 96—97.
To the Truman Doctrine 345

$750 million, and the Army's overseas relief program for occupied coun­
tries by $500 million. General George C. Marshall, who had recently re­
placed Byrnes as secretary of state, warned that conditions in occupied
countries would become “impossible” if Congress approved these budget
cuts. Navy Secretary Forrestal thought that they would make the Navy
“practically immobile and impotent.” Secretary of W ar Patterson wrote
former Secretary of State Byrnes that the proposed Republican action
would mean “that we will travel again the same old road, disarming
while the other major powers remain armed.” 44
The House of Representatives accepted the Joint Committee's recom­
mendation for a budget slash of $6 billion, but in the Senate, largely
through the influence of Vandenberg, the reduction was kept to $4.5 bil­
lion. In the resulting conference committee, the Senate's wishes pre­
vailed, and a budget of $34.7 billion was approved. Vandenberg also
succeeded in staving off Republican efforts to raise tariffs, but only in re­
turn for a concession from the State Department allowing the United
States to withdraw from any reciprocal trade agreement which threat­
ened to harm a domestic industry.45
The determination of conservative Republicans to cut the budget re­
gardless of what effect this might have on Administration foreign policy
worried many Washington observers. Senator Henry Cabot Lodge com­
pared the approach of his G.O.P. colleagues to that of “a man wielding
a meat ax in a dark room [who] might cut off his own head.” Vanden­
berg suggested that Republican behavior might present to the world a
picture of “Uncle Sam with a chip on each shoulder and both arms in a
sling.” Ernest K. Lindley charged in Newsweek that through “myopia,
ignorance, and indifference” conservative Republicans, many of them vo­
ciferous critics of Russia, were “lending the Kremlin the greatest aid and
comfort.” Columnist Joseph Alsop put the matter even more bluntly:
“The world is about to blow up in our faces, and the damned fools in
Congress behave as though there was nothing worse to worry about than
their richer constituents' difficulty in paying their taxes.” 46
44 Newsweek, XXIX (February 24, 1947), 26; Jones, The Fifteen Weeks, pp.
90—91; Patterson to Byrnes, February 11, 1947, Patterson MSS, Box 18.
45Jones, The Fifteen Weeks, pp. 91, 96—99; Newsweek, XXIX (February 17,
1947), 26.
46 Jones, The Fifteen Weeks, p. 91; Newsweek, XXIX (March 3, 1947), 25-26;
Alsop to Martin Sommers, February 25, 1947, Alsop MSS, Box 1.
346 To the Truman Doctrine

But in their push for economy at all costs, Republicans in Congress

reflected the wishes of a substantial number of Americans who hoped
that peace would bring a return to small government, low taxes, and
noninvolvement in events overseas. The depth of this feeling indicated
that the Truman Administration still had far to go in educating the
American people to the responsibilities of world leadership. No one was
more aware of this than Joseph M. Jones, of the State Department’s Of­
fice of Public Affairs. Late in February he sent a memorandum to Assist­
ant Secretary of State William Benton emphasizing how the concessions
Congress had extracted from the Administration would increase the dif­
ficulty of dealing with the constantly-worsening world economic crisis:
I think we must admit the conclusion that Congress and the people of this
country are not sufficiently aware of the character and dimensions of the
crisis that impends, and of the measures that must be taken in terms of
relief, loans, gifts, constructive development programs and liberal trade
policies— all of these on a scale hitherto unimagined— if disaster is to be
avoided. . . . The State Department knows. Congress and the people do not
know.
Jones called for an immediate program “to inform the people and con­
vince the Congress adequately with respect to today’s crisis.” Such a pro­
gram should involve a “grave, frank, statesmanlike appeal to the people”
in which “the danger should be described fully and the cost of both ac­
tion and inaction estimated.” 47 During the next two weeks, to Jones’s
astonishment and pleasure, a combination of unexpected developments
caused the Administration to embark on precisely the kind of campaign
which he had recommended.

IV
Despite gloomy developments on the domestic and international
fronts, morale in the Truman Administration and the Department of
State was surprisingly high early in 1947. The Republican victory had a
47 Jones to Benton, February 26, 1947, Jones MSS. Interestingly enough, Jones at
this time felt that Secretary of State Marshall, not President Truman, should make the
appeal to the country because Marshall “is the only one in the Government with the
prestige to make a deep impression." Jones favored having Marshall make a personal
appearance before Congress "with tremendous advance build-up."
To the Truman Doctrine 347

strangely invigorating effect on Truman, who later told Jonathan Dan­

iels that “the Eightieth Congress was the luckiest thing that ever hap­
pened to me.” Shortly after the elections, Truman had won a major vic­
tory by forcing the capitulation of John L. Lewis in an acrimonious
labor dispute. By February, 1947, Joseph Âlsop perceived “a complete
change of atmosphere at the White House.” He noted that “ever since
the Lewis crisis, the President has grown surer and surer of himself. He
no longer moans to every visitor that he doesn't want the job and never
did. On the contrary, he spent two hours with Bob Hannegan yesterday
planning on how to get it again.” Alsop also observed that Truman now
greatly enjoyed “diplomatic receptions and other such occasions of unal­
loyed horror, taking the utmost delight in the odd spectacle of himself in
a White Tie and Tails pumphandling the great— or at any rate the
conspicuous.” 48
Morale had also greatly improved in the Department of State with
the resignation of Byrnes as secretary of state in January, 1947, and the
appointment of General Marshall to replace him. Byrnes's reluctance to
consult subordinates, together with his lax administrative methods and
his long absences from the country, had kept him from forming close
working relationships with career officers in the department. As one de­
partment malcontent complained: “The State Department fiddles while
Byrnes roams.” Marshall, on the other hand, insisted on orderly staff
procedures and placed far more responsibility for policy-making on sub­
ordinates than Byrnes or previous secretaries had done. Undersecretary of
State Acheson was particularly pleased with the change, as David Lilien­
thal observed in March, 1947 :
Dean spent a good deal of time bubbling over with his enthusiasm, rapture
almost, about* General Marshall. . . . To work with him is such a joy that
he can hardly talk about anything else. 1 am delighted with this, for Jimmy
Byrnes' erratic and often thoughtless (as well as sometimes just plain inept)
administrative and other ideas had about driven Dean crazy. Marshall . . .
has made a new man of Dean, and this is a good thing for the country right
now.
The effect of Marshall's appointment, Joseph Jones later recalled, “was
felt from top to bottom and called forth a great surge of ideas and con-
48 Phillips, The Truman Presidency, pp. 121—25, 161; Daniels, The Man o f Inde­
pendence, p. 294; Alsop to Martin Sommers, February 3, 1947, Alsop MSS, Box 1.
348 To the Truman Doctrine

structive effort.” 49 The new sense of purpose which invigorated both the
W hite House and the State Department contributed significantly to the
speed and decisiveness with which these institutions responded to the cri­
sis, late in February, 1947, caused by the abrupt British withdrawal from
Greece and Turkey.
The British government officially informed the State Department on
February 21, 1947, that because of internal economic difficulties it
would have to suspend economic and military aid to Greece and Turkey
as of March 31. The situation in Turkey posed no immediate danger,
but in Greece a communist-led guerrilla movement, supplied from Yu­
goslavia, Bulgaria, and Albania and feeding on the economic distress
wrought by years of war and government ineptitude, threatened to move
into the power vacuum left by the British withdrawal. The State Depart­
ment regarded these guerrillas as “an instrument of Soviet policy,” and
worried that if they came to power in Greece a “domino” effect would
propel Turkey, Iran, and possibly even Italy and France into a Russian
sphere of influence. The only alternative seemed to be immediate and
massive American economic and military aid to prop up the sagging
Greek regime. By February 26, the President and the Secretaries of
State, War, and Navy had all agreed that such aid should be given.
Their problem now was to convince an increasingly economy-minded
Congress to undertake this new and expensive commitment.50
On February 27, President Truman invited a bipartisan group of con­
gressional leaders to the White House for a briefing on the Greek crisis.
Secretary of State Marshall described the reasons why the British had
withdrawn aid from Greece and Turkey, the danger that these areas
might fall under Soviet domination, and the decision which the execu­
tive branch had reached on the necessity for American assistance. Mar-
49 Jones, The Fifteen Weeks, pp. 105—7; Graham H. Stuart, The Department o f
State, pp. 425, 440; Lilienthal Journal, March 9, 1947, Lilienthal Journals, II,
158—59. On Marshall’s working methods, see Jones, The Fifteen Weeks, pp. 106-10;
Acheson, Sketches from Life, pp. 147—66; Kennan, Memoirs, pp. 345—47; and Robert
H. Ferrell, George C. Marshall, pp. 17—20, 49—54.
50 Jones, The Fifteen Weeks, pp. 3—8, 129—38; “Background Memorandum on
Greece,” March 3, 1947, Jones MSS; Acheson, Present at the Creation, pp. 217-19.
See also the “Memorandum Regarding Greece” prepared by the State Department’s
Office of Near Eastern and African Affairs, October 21, 1946, FR: 1946, VII, 240-45.
For background on the Greek civil war, see Stephen G. Xydis, Greece and the Great
Powers, 1944—1947; and Edgar O'Ballance, The Greek Civil War, 1944—1949.
To the Truman Doctrine 349

shall’s dry, laconic presentation failed to impress the suspicious congress­

men, who began muttering darkly about “pulling British chestnuts out
of the fire.” At this point, Dean Acheson asked for permission to speak.
The Undersecretary of State painted a vivid picture of a world divided
between irreconcilable ideologies, a situation unparalleled since the days
of Rome and Carthage. The Soviet Union, he asserted, was trying to im­
pose its ideology on as much of the world as possible. A victory for com­
munism in Greece, Turkey, Iran, or any of the other countries of the
Near East and Mediterranean region could lead rapidly to the collapse
of pro-Western governments throughout Europe. Russian control over
two-thirds of the world s surface and three-fourths of its population
would make American security precarious indeed. Therefore, aid to
Greece and Turkey was not simply a matter of rescuing British chest­
nuts, it was a sober and realistic effort to protect the security of the
United States by strengthening the ability of free people to resist com­
munist aggression and subversion.
Acheson's speech understandably left the congressmen somewhat
awed. After a brief period of silence, Vandenberg announced that since
the country clearly faced a serious crisis, he would support the Adminis­
tration's request for aid to Greece and Turkey provided the President
personally put the situation before Congress and the people in the same
terms which Acheson had just employed. The other congressmen present
registered no objections, and the meeting broke up with the tacit under­
standing that congressional leaders would support aid to Greece and
Turkey if the Administration explained clearly that this aid was neces­
sary to prevent the further expansion of communism.51
W ith Vandenberg s injunction clearly in mind, Marshall and Acheson
set the State Department to work to draft a speech for Truman to give
to Congress. The chief information officers of the State, War, and Navy
departments met on February 28 to consider the most effective manner
in which to present the decision to aid Greece and Turkey. Out of this
meeting came a working paper which defined the problem confronting
the Administration as follows:
51 The most complete account of the February 27, 1947, meeting is in Jones, The
Fifteen Weeks, pp. 138—42, but see also Vandenberg, ed., Private Papers, pp. 338—39;
Truman, Years o f Trial and Hope, pp. 103—4; Acheson, Present at the Creation, p.
219; and Xydis, Greece and the Great Powers, pp. 478—80.
350 To the Truman Doctrine

1. To make possible the formulation of intelligent opinions by the Ameri­

can people on the problems created by the present situation in Greece
through the furnishing of full and frank information by the government.
2. To portray the world conflict between free and totalitarian or imposed
forms of government.
3. To bring about an understanding by the American people of the world
strategic situation.

The paper recommended that Truman proclaim it to be “basic United

States policy” to “support free peoples who are resisting attempted subju­
gation by armed minorities or by outside pressures.” It concluded with
an extensive set of suggestions for off-the-record press conferences, writ­
ten material, radio discussions, magazine and feature articles, and public
speaking programs through which the department’s new policy could be
presented to the people.52
A few officials objected to having the President make such a sweeping
commitment. White House administrative assistant George Elsey noted
that “there has been no overt action in the immediate past by the
U.S.S.R. which serves as an adequate pretext for [an] ‘All-out’ speech.
The situation in Greece is relatively ‘abstract’; there have been other
instances— Iran, for example— where the occasion more adequately
justified such a speech.” The heavy ideological emphasis of the State De­
partment’s draft appalled George Kennan, whose “long telegram” of
February, 1946, had done so much to make the Administration think in
ideological terms. Although Kennan supported aid to Greece and Tur­
key, he objected to placing it “in the framework of a universal policy
rather than in that of a specific decision addressed to a specific set of cir­
cumstances.” Kennan had always perceived keenly the limitations which
domestic considerations imposed on the conduct of foreign relations, but
he was surprisingly blind to the difficulties of overriding these limita­
tions in order to implement an unpopular policy. The Truman speech
was, in fact, aimed more toward the American public than toward the
world; it was, as Clark Clifford put it, “the opening gun in a campaign
to bring people up to [the] realization that the war isn’t over by any
means.” The domestic situation had made it clear, in the words of one of
the information officers present at the February 28 meeting, that ‘the
52 Jones, The Fifteen Weeks, pp. 150—53; State-War-Navy Coordinating Committee
Subcommittee on Information Paper, “Information Program on United States Aid to
Greece," submitted to Acheson on March 4, 1947, Jones MSS.
To the Truman Doctrine 351

only way we can sell the public on our new policy is by emphasizing the
necessity of holding the line: communism vs. democracy should be the
major theme.” 53
It was. When Truman came before Congress on March 12, 1947, to
ask for aid to Greece and Turkey, he made the ideological confrontation
between the Soviet Union and the United States the central focus of his
remarks:
At the present moment in world history nearly every nation must choose
between alternative ways of life. The choice is too often not a free one.
One way of life is based upon the will of the majority, and is distinguished
by free institutions, representative government, free elections, guaranties
of individual liberty, freedom of speech and religion, and freedom from
political oppression.
The second way of life is based upon the will of a minority forcibly im­
posed upon the majority. It relies upon terror and oppression, a controlled
press and radio, fixed elections, and the suppression of personal freedoms.
I believe that it must be the policy of the United States to support free
people who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by
outside pressures.54
The Truman Doctrine constituted a form of shock therapy: it was a
last-ditch effort by the Administration to prod Congress and the Ameri­
can people into accepting the responsibilities of the world leadership
which one year earlier, largely in response to public opinion, Washing­
ton officials had assumed by deciding to “get tough with Russia.”
Kennan’s fears to the contrary notwithstanding, the Truman Adminis­
tration never intended to commit itself to help victims of communist ag­
gression anywhere in the world. Acheson explained to the Senate
Foreign Relations Committee on March 24, 1947, that aid to Greece
and Turkey would not set a precedent for subsequent American policy,
and that all requests for assistance in the future would be evaluated indi­
vidually in terms of “whether the country in question really needs assist­
ance, whether its request is consistent with American foreign policy,
whether the request for assistance is sincere, and whether assistance by
the United States would be effective in meeting the problems of that
53 Elsey to Clifford, March 8, 1947, Elsey MSS, Box 17; Kennan, Memoirs, pp.
314—15, 319—20; Clifford statement quoted by Elsey in a handwritten memorandum
dated March 9, 1947, Elsey MSS, Box 17; Jones, The Fifteen Weeks, pp. 151,
154-55.
54 Truman Public Papers: 1947, pp. 178—79.
352 To the Truman Doctrine

country/'55 The Administration's reluctance to support Chiang Kai-shek

against the Chinese Communists showed that it took Acheson’s qualifi­
cation seriously, as did Washington’s failure to contest the communist
takeover in Czechoslovakia in 1948.56
But the fall of China and the Korean War, together with the domes­
tic onslaught of McCarthyism, would make it politically impossible for
Truman and his successors to continue making such fine distinctions in
formulating American policy. By presenting aid to Greece and Turkey
in terms of an ideological conflict between two ways of life, Washington
officials encouraged a simplistic view of the Cold W ar which was, in
time, to imprison American diplomacy in an ideological straitjacket al­
most as confining as that which restricted Soviet foreign policy. Trapped
in their own rhetoric, leaders of the United States found it difficult to re­
spond to the conciliatory gestures which emanated from the Kremlin
following Stalin’s death and, through their inflexibility, may well have
contributed to the perpetuation of the Cold War.
55 Statement of March 24, 1947, quoted in Jones, The Fifteen Weeks, p. 190. See
also the State Department Policy Planning Staff memorandum of May 23, 1947,
quoted ibid., pp. 251—52.
56 On this point, see Seyom Brown, The Faces o f Power, p. 17.
 Conclusion:
The United States and the
Origins of the Cold W a r

American leaders did not want a Cold War, but they wanted insecurity
even less. By early 1946, President Truman and his advisers had reluc­
tantly concluded that recent actions of the Soviet Union endangered the
security of the United States. This decision grew out of a complex of in­
ternal and external pressures, all filtered through the perceptions and
preconceptions of the men who made American foreign policy. In order
to understand how they came to this conclusion, it is necessary to view
the situation as they saw it, not as it appears today in the cold, but not
always clear, light of historical hindsight.1
World W ar II had produced a revolution in United States foreign
policy. Prior to that conflict, most Americans believed that their country
could best protect itself by minimizing political entanglements overseas.
Events of 1939—40 persuaded leaders of the Roosevelt Administration
that they had been wrong; Pearl Harbor convinced remaining skeptics.
From then on, American policy-makers would seek security through in­
volvement, not isolation: to prevent new wars, they believed, the whole
1 On this point, see Robert F. Berkhofer, Jr., A Behavioral Approach to Historical
Analysis, pp. 32—45.
354 Conclusion

system of relations between nations would have to be reformed. Assum­

ing that only their country had the power and influence to carry out this
task, United States officials set to work, even before formal entry into
the war, to plan a peace settlement which would accomplish such a ref­
ormation.
Lessons of the past greatly influenced Washington’s vision of the fu­
ture. Determined to avoid mistakes which, in their view, had caused
World War II, American planners sought to disarm defeated enemies,
give peoples of the world the right to shape their own future, revive
world trade, and replace the League of Nations with a new and more
effective collective security organization. But without victory over the
Axis, the United States would never have the opportunity to implement
its plan for peace. Given the realities of the military situation, victory
depended upon cooperation with the Soviet Union, an ally whose com­
mitment to American postwar ideals was, at best, questionable.
Kremlin leaders, too, looked to the past in planning for the future,
but their very different experiences led them to conclusions not always
congruent with those of their American allies. For Stalin, the key to
peace was simple: keep Russia strong and Germany weak. The Soviet
dictator enthusiastically applauded American insistence on unconditional
surrender, questioning only the wisdom of making this policy public. He
showed little interest in Washington’s plans for collective security, the
reduction of tariff barriers, and reform of the world monetary system.
Self-determination in Eastern Europe, however, he would not allow: the
region was vital to Soviet security, but the people who lived there were
bitterly anti-Russian. Nor could Stalin view with equanimity Allied ef­
forts, also growing out of lessons of the past, to limit reparations re­
movals from Germany. These two conflicts—Eastern Europe and Ger­
many— became major areas of contention in the emerging Cold War.
Moscow’s position would not have seemed so alarming to American
officials, however, had it not been for the Soviet Union’s continued com­
mitment to an ideology dedicated to the overthrow of capitalism
throughout the world. Hopes that the United States might cooperate
successfully with the USSR after the war had been based on the belief,
encouraged by Stalin himself, that the Kremlin had given up its former
goal of exporting communism. Soviet expansion into Eastern Europe in
1944 and 1945, together with the apparent abandonment of popular
Conclusion 355

front tactics by the world communist movement, caused Western observ­

ers to fear that they had been misled. Just at the moment of victory over
the Axis, the old specter of world revolution reappeared.
It seems likely that Washington policy-makers mistook Stalin’s deter­
mination to ensure Russian security through spheres of influence for a re­
newed effort to spread communism outside the borders of the Soviet
*

Union. The Russians did not immediately impose communist regimes on

all the countries they occupied after the war, and Stalin showed noto­
riously little interest in promoting the fortunes of communist parties in
areas beyond his control.2 But the Soviet leader failed to make the lim­
ited nature of his objectives clear. Having just defeated one dictator
thought to have had unlimited ambitions, Americans could not regard
the emergence of another without the strongest feelings of apprehension
and anger.
Nor did they see any reason to acquiesce timidly in what Stalin
seemed to be doing. The United States had come out of the war with a
monopoly over the world’s most powerful weapon, the atomic bomb,
and a near-monopoly over the productive facilities which could make
possible quick rehabilitation of war-shattered economies. Convinced that
technology had given them the means to shape the postwar order to
their liking,3 Washington officials assumed that these instruments would
leave the Russians no choice but to comply with American peace plans.
Attempts to extract concessions from Moscow in return for a loan failed,
however, when the Soviet Union turned to German reparations to meet
its reconstruction needs. The Russians also refused to be impressed by
2 Historians, revisionist and nonrevisionist, now generally agree on the limited na­
ture of Stalin’s objectives. See, for example, Ulam, Expansion and Coexistence, pp.
403—4, 420—23; McNeill, America, Britain, and Russia, pp. 316, 406, 408, 476;
Fleming, The Cold War and Its Origins, I, 252—62; Kolko, Politics o f War, pp.
618—23; LaFeber, America, Russia and the Cold War, 1945—1967, pp. 17, 23; Louis
J. Halle, The Cold War as History, pp. 11, 17, 46; Deutscher, Ironies o f History, pp.
151—56; Schlesinger, “Origins of the Cold W ar,” p. 36; and Starobin, “Origins of the
Cold War: The Communist Dimension,’’ pp. 686—88. But in 1947 the distinguished
historian William L. Langer was writing: “We can see dearly now that it was a mis­
take to believe that the Bolsheviks had given up the idea of world revolution. . . .
Europe and the world have been freed of the Nazi menace only to be confronted with
the specter of Communist control.’’ (“Political Problems of a Coalition,’’ Foreign A f­
fairs, XXVI [October, 1947], 88.)
3 On this point, see Sir Denis Brogan, “The Illusion of American Omnipotence,’’
Harper*s, CCV (December, 1952), 21—28.
356 Conclusion

the atomic bomb, leaving the Truman Administration with the choice of
actually using it, or returning to quid pro quo bargaining. American om­
nipotence turned out to be an illusion because Washington policy-mak­
ers failed to devise strategies for applying their newly gained power
effectively in practical diplomacy.
Frustrated in their efforts to work out an acceptable settlement with
the USSR, under severe pressure from Congress and the public to make
no further compromises, American leaders embarked on a new Russian
policy during the first months of 1946. Henceforth, expansionist moves
by the Kremlin would be resisted, even at the risk of war. Negotiations
would continue, but future concessions would have to come from Mos­
cow. Meanwhile, the United States would begin rebuilding its military
forces, now badly depleted by demobilization, and would launch an am­
bitious program of economic assistance to nations threatened by commu­
nism. Administration officials found it necessary to exaggerate the Soviet
ideological challenge in order to win support for these projects from par­
simonious legislators, but there can be no doubt that the President and
his advisers regarded the danger as a serious one. Nor can there be any
question that the general principle of “getting tough with Russia”
evoked overwhelming public approval: a generation seared by the mem­
ory of Munich would not tolerate appeasement, however unpleasant the
alternatives might be.
It is easy for historians, writing a quarter of a century later, to suggest
ways in which the United States might have avoided, or at least less­
ened, the dangers of a postwar confrontation with the Soviet Union.
President Roosevelt could have eased Russia’s military burden by
launching a second front in Europe in 1942 or 1943. He could have ex­
plicitly exempted Eastern Europe from provisions of the Atlantic
Charter, thereby recognizing the Soviet sphere of influence in that part
of the world. American officials could have aided in the massive task of
repairing Russian war damage by granting a generous reconstruction
loan, and by allowing extensive reparations removals from Germany. Fi­
nally, the United States could have attempted to allay Soviet distrust by
voluntarily relinquishing its monopoly over the atomic bomb.
But these w ere not viable alternatives at the time. A prem ature sec­
ond front would have greatly increased Am erican casualties and m ight
have weakened support for the w ar effort. Recognition o f the Soviet po-
Conclusion 357

sition in Eastern Europe would have aroused opposition in the Senate to

American membership in the United Nations, and might have endan­
gered Roosevelt's reelection prospects. Economic concessions to the Rus­
sians, in the form of either a reconstruction loan or a more flexible atti­
tude on reparations, would have evoked a storm of protest from a
Congress still largely isolationist in its approach to foreign aid. A deci­
sion to give up the atomic bomb would have so alienated the American
people and their representatives on Capitol Hill as to impair the very
functioning of the government. Policy-makers operate within a certain
range of acceptable options, but they, not historians, define degrees of ac­
ceptability. It is surely uncharitable, if not unjust, to condemn officials
for rejecting courses of action which, to them, seemed intolerable.
A fairer approach is to ask why policy-makers defined their alterna­
tives so narrowly. Important recent work by revisionist historians sug­
gests that requirements of the economic system may have limited the op­
tions open to American officials in seeking an accommodation with
Russia. Leaders of the United States had become convinced, revisionists
assert, that survival of the capitalist system at home required the unlim­
ited expansion of American economic influence overseas. For this reason,
the United States could not recognize legitimate Soviet interests in East­
ern Europe, Germany, or elsewhere. By calling for an international
“open door" policy, Washington had projected its interests on a world­
wide scale. The real or imagined threat of communism anywhere endan­
gered these interests, and had to be contained.4
Revisionists are correct in emphasizing the importance of internal
constraints, but they have defined them too narrowly: by focusing so
heavily on economics, they neglect the profound impact of the domestic
political system on the conduct of American foreign policy. The Consti­
tution did, after all, give the public and their representatives on Capitol
4 This interpretation was originally put forward by William A. Williams in The
Tragedy o f American Diplomacy. Important extensions and elaborations of Williams’
thesis include Gardner, Economic Aspects o f New Deal Diplomacy and Architects o f
Illusion; Kolko, Politics o f War; LaFeber, America, Russia, and the Cold War, espe­
cially chapters 1 and 2; Gar Alperovitz, Cold War Essays, especially pp. 75—121;
David Horowitz, Free World Colossus; and the essays on foreign policy in Barton J.
Bernstein, ed., Politics and Policies o f the Truman Administration. Revisionists are by
no means in agreement on all aspects of the debate surrounding the origins of the
Cold W ar, but they do all accept the basic elements of the Williams thesis.
358 Conclusion

Hill at least a negative influence in this field, and while these influences
may not have determined the specific direction of diplomatic initiatives,
they did impose definite limitations on how far policy-makers could go.
The delay in opening the second front, nonrecognition of Moscow's
sphere of influence in Eastern Europe, the denial of economic aid to Rus­
sia, and the decision to retain control of the atomic bomb can all be ex­
plained far more plausibly by citing the Administration's need to main­
tain popular support for its policies rather than by dwelling upon
requirements of the economic order.
One might, of course, argue that the political system reflected the eco­
nomic substructure, and that American officials were merely unwitting
tools of capitalism, but it is difficult to justify this assumption without
resorting to the highly questionable techniques of economic determin­
ism.5 At times, it seems as if revisionists do employ this approach—
they frequently take literally only statements of economic interest, dis­
regarding as irrelevant whatever other explanations policy-makers gave
for their actions. But the revisionists are not consistent in their economic
determinism. Carried to its logical conclusion, that view of history would
seem to indicate that the Cold War was an irrepressible conflict between
two diametrically opposed ideologies; a clash for which individuals, pre­
sumably puppets of these systems, could bear no responsibility. Revision­
ists do not see the Cold W ar that way. They assert that the United
States, because of its military and economic superiority over the Soviet
Union, could have accepted Moscow's postwar demands without endan­
gering American security. Because it did not, they hold leaders of the
United States responsible for the way in which the Cold War developed,
if not for the Cold W ar itself.6 This places revisionists in the odd posi-
5 For three recent critiques of economic determinism, see Berkhofer, Behavioral Ap­
proach to Historical Analysis, pp. 56—57; David Hackett Fischer, Historians*Fallacies:
Toward a Logic o f Historical Thought, pp. 74—78; and Richard Hofstadter's essay on
Charles Beard in The Progressive Historians, especially pp. 244—45.
•G ardner, Architects o f Illusion, pp. x—xi; Horowitz, Free World Colossus, pp.
19—20. See also Gardner's comment in Lloyd C. Gardner, A rthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.,
and Hans J. Morgenthau, Origins o f the Cold War, p. 109. The most thorough cri­
tique of Cold W ar revisionism is Charles S. Maier, “Revisionism and the Interpreta­
tion of Cold W ar Origins," Perspectives in American History, IV (1970), 313—47;
but see also Paul Seabury, “Cold W ar Origins," Journal o f Contemporary History, III
(January, 1968), 169—82; Daniel M. Smith, “The New Left and the Cold W ar," Uni­
versity o f Denver Quarterly, W inter, 1970, pp. 78—88; Christopher Lasch, “The Cold
W ar, Revisited and Re-Visioned," New York Times Magazine, January 14, 1968, es-
Conclusion 359

tion of employing a single-cause explanation of human behavior, yet

criticizing the subjects they deal with for not liberating themselves from
the mechanistic framework which they, as historians, have imposed.
But even if, as the revisionists suggest, American officials had enjoyed
a completely free hand in seeking a settlement with the Soviet Union, it
seems unlikely that they would have succeeded. Accomplishment of this
task required not only conciliatory actions by Washington but a recep­
tive attitude on the part of Moscow. The latter simply did not exist. Tra­
ditional distrust of foreigners, combined with ideological differences,
would have militated against a relationship of mutual trust with the
United States regardless of who ruled Russia. Stalin’s paranoia, together
with the bureaucracy of institutionalized suspicion with which he sur­
rounded himself, made the situation much worse. Information on the in­
ternal workings of the Soviet government during this period is still
sparse, but sufficient evidence exists to confirm the accuracy of Kennan’s
1946 conclusion that Russian hostility sprang chiefly from internal
sources not susceptible to gestures of conciliation from the West.*7
Historians have debated at length the question of who caused the
Cold War,8 but without shedding much light on the subject. Too often
they view that event exclusively as a series of actions by one side and re-
pecially p. 59; and Henry Pachter, “Revisionist Historians and the Cold W ar,“ in Irv­
ing Howe, ed.. Beyond the New Left, pp. 166—91. My own reservations about Cold
W ar revisionism were more fully expressed in “Domestic Influences on American Pol­
icy Toward the Soviet Union, 1941—1947,“ a paper delivered at the 1970 annual con­
vention of the American Historical Association.
7 Kennan to Byrnes, March 20, 1946, FR: 1946, V, 723. See also Schlesinger, “Ori­
gins of the Cold W ar,“ pp. 46—50; and Ulam, Expansion and Coexistence, p. 399.
Recently published memoirs by Soviet diplomatic and military officials depict vividly the
almost pathological suspicion with which Stalin treated his own associates. A valuable
compilation of translated excerpts is Seweryn Bialer, compiler, Stalin and His Gener­
als: Soviet Military Memoirs o f World War IL See also Svetlana Alliluyeva, Twenty
Letters to a Friend; Milovan Djilas, Conversations with Stalin; Harrison £. Salisbury,
The 900 Days: The Siege o f Leningrad; and, if we may assume its authenticity, Nikita
S. Khrushchev, Khrushchev Remembers. But no one has more effectively portrayed
Stalin’s personality and the effect it had on the Soviet bureaucracy than Alexander I.
Solzhenitsyn in his novel The First Circle.
8 Thomas G. Paterson, ed., The Origins o f the Cold War, provides the most useful
introduction to this debate, but see also Norman A. Graebner, “Cold W ar Origins and
the Continuing Debate: A Review of Recent Literature,” Journal o f Conflict Resolu­
tion, X III (March, 1969), 123-32; and Robert W . Sellen, “Origins of the Cold War:
An Historiographical Survey,” West Georgia College Studies in the Social Sciences,
IX (June, 1970), 57-98.
360 Conclusion

actions by the other. In fact, policy-makers in both the United States and
the Soviet Union were constantly weighing each other’s intentions, as
they perceived them, ^nd modifying their own courses of action accord­
ingly. In addition, officials in Washington and Moscow brought to the
task of policy formulation a variety of preconceptions, shaped by person­
ality, ideology, political pressures, even ignorance and irrationality, all of
which influenced their behavior. Once this complex interaction of stimu­
lus and response is taken into account, it becomes clear that neither side
can bear sole responsibility for the onset of the Cold War.
But neither should the conflict be seen as irrepressible, if for no other
reason than the methodological impossibility of “proving” inevitability
in history.9 The power vacuum in central Europe caused by Germany’s
collapse made a Russian-American confrontation likely; it did not make
it inevitable. Men as well as circumstances make foreign policy, and
through such drastic expedients as war, appeasement, or resignation, pol­
icy-makers can always alter difficult situations in which they find them­
selves. One may legitimately ask why they do not choose to go this far,
but to view their actions as predetermined by blind, impersonal “forces”
is to deny the complexity and particularity of human behavior, not to
mention the ever-present possibility of accident. The Cold W ar is too
complicated an event to be discussed in terms of either national guilt or
the determinism of inevitability.
If one must assign responsibility for the Cold War, the most meaning­
ful way to proceed is to ask which side had the greater opportunity to
accommodate itself, at least in part, to the other’s position, given the
range of alternatives as they appeared at the time. Revisionists have
argued that American policy-makers possessed greater freedom of action,
but their view ignores the constraints imposed by domestic politics. Lit­
tle is known even today about how Stalin defined his options, but it does
seem safe to say that the very nature of the Soviet system afforded him a
larger selection of alternatives than were open to leaders of the United
States. The Russian dictator was immune from pressures of Congress,
public opinion, or the press. Even ideology did not restrict him: Stalin
was the master of communist doctrine, not a prisoner of it, and could
modify or suspend Marxism-Leninism whenever it suited him to do so.10
9 Fischer, Historians* Fallacies, pp. 12—13.
10 Schlesinger, “Origins of the Cold W ar/' p. 48; Starobin, “Origins of the Cold
W ar,” p. 683.
Conclusion 361

This is not to say that Stalin wanted a Cold W ar— he had every rea­
son to avoid one. But his absolute powers did give him more chances to
surmount the internal restraints on his policy than were available to his
democratic counterparts in the West.

The Cold W ar grew out of a complicated interaction of external and

internal developments inside both the United States and the Soviet
Union. The external situation— circumstances beyond the control of
either power— left Americans and Russians facing one another across
prostrated Europe at the end of World War II. Internal influences in the
Soviet Union— the search for security, the role of ideology, massive
postwar reconstruction needs, the personality of Stalin— together with
those in the United States— the ideal of self-determination, fear of
communism, the illusion of omnipotence fostered by American economic
strength and the atomic bomb—made the resulting confrontation a
hostile one. Leaders of both superpowers sought peace, bùt in doing so
yielded to considerations which, while they did not precipitate war,
made a resolution of differences impossible.
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Acheson, Dean G.: on Hull, 19; and inter­ Army-Navy Journal, 286
national control of atomic energy, 251- Atkinson, Brooks, 45
52, 273, 279, 293, 332-35; on Vanden- Atlantic Charter (1941): British attitude
berg, 292; on postwar treatment of Ger­ toward, 3, 12, 15; Soviet attitude to­
many, 330; on Turkish crisis (1946), ward, 3, 15; Roosevelt on, 12, 15-17,
337«; on British loan, 342-43; on Mar­ 164; Hull on, 15-16; and Eastern Eu­
shall, 347; and Truman Doctrine, 349- rope, 15-17, 55, 134-40, 143, 146,
52 163, 356; Vandenberg on, 30, 140,
Acheson-Lilienthal report, 332-35 146; and international organization,
Adler, Les K., 54» 149-57; and U.S. economic assistance
Advisory Committee on Postwar Foreign to Soviet Union, 223
Policy, 8, 29, 97, 137 Atlantic Conference (1941), 12-13, 25
Agee, James, 44 Atomic bomb: and wartime military strat­
Albania, 348 egy, 78, 213-14, 245; and Soviet
Allen, George, 287-88 Union, 86-87, 244-46, 267-73, 283,
Alperovitz, Gar, 246» 355-57; Hyde Park agreement on use
Alsop, Joseph, 319, 345, 347 of (1944), 87; and Potsdam Conference
Alsop, Stewart, 319 (1945), 231-32», 244; international
Amerasia, 257-58 control of, 246-57, 267-73, 276-79,
America, 53 292-93, 331-35; and Eastern Europe,
American Locomotive Company, 187 246, 264-68; and espionage, 252-53,
American-Russian Chamber of Commerce, 301-2; domestic control of, 255»; see
188 also Public opinion, U.S.
Anglo-Soviet treaty (1942), 16, 69 Attlee, Clement, 269-72
ARCADIA conference (1941-42), 66 Azerbaijan, 310-12
Argentina, 226
Armstrong, Hamilton Fish, 305 Badoglio, Pietro, 88-89
Army, U.S., and military government, Balkans, proposed Anglo-American inva­
102-4, 116-19, 121-25 sion of, 63, 76-77
384 Index

Ball, Joseph, 156 Business, and U.S. economic assistance to

Baltic States, 14-17, 135-39, 158; see also Soviet Union, 185-89
Eastern Europe Byrnes, James F.: and 1944 Democratic
Barkley, Alben, 166 vice-presidential nomination, 160,285;
Barmine, Alexander, 55 at Yalta Conference (1945), 160-66;
Barry, William, 166 and Vandenberg, 169, 291-96, 305-6;
Baruch, Bernard: on Eastern Europe, 157, on Russian loan, 194; appointed Secre­
202; on U.S. economic influence, 224; tary of State, 238-39; on postwar treat­
and Churchill's Fulton speech, 307; on ment of Germany, 239-42, 328-31; on
Byrnes, 314; and international control international control of atomic energy,
of atomic energy, 332-35 251, 264, 267-73, 276-79, 332-34;
Baruch Plan, 332-35, 338 and Eastern Europe, 263-65, 275-76;
Basic Handbook for Military Government and occupation of Japan, 265-66, 275-
o f Germany, 116-17, 119, 122 76, 281; and postwar relations with
Batt, William L., 187 Soviet Union, 266-67, 275-76, 283-
Belgian Congo, 267 84, 298, 304-15, 317-18, 323-24; re­
Benson, Elmer, 230 lations with Congress, 272-73, 277-79,
Benton, William, 346 283-86, 290-96; administrative meth­
Berle, Adolf A., 16 ods, 278», 286», 347; relations with
Berlin, 75-76, 110-11, 207-8, 341 Truman, 283-90; and China, 286; and
Berne incident, 92-94, 197 Republican Party, 290-96; and com­
Bernstein, Bernard, 117 munism, 298; and Iranian crisis (1946),
Bessarabia, 14, 158 309-312; and Wallace, 338-41; resig­
Bevin, Ernest, 276, 295 nation as Secretary of State, 345, 347
Bidault, Georges, 296, 312
Biddle, Francis, 148 Caffery, Jefferson, 326
Bipartisanship, 14, 29-30, 290-96, 325- Cairo Declaration (1943), 212
26, 341, 344-45 Callendar, Harold, 340
Bohlen, Charles E., 51, 73, 126, 138 Canada: collaboration with U.S. and Great
Bohr, Niels, 87 Britain in development of atomic bomb,
Bowman, Isaiah, 136-37 249, 252-53; espionage in, 252-53,
Bremen, Germany, 111 301-2; and international control of
Bremerhaven, Germany, 111 atomic energy, 269-73
Bretton Woods Conference (1944), 22 Capehart, Homer, 291
Bricker, John W., 58-59 Capitalism, and U.S. foreign policy, 358
Bridges, Styles, 152 Capper, Arthur, 255
Browder, Earl, 57-61, 257-58 Casablanca Conference (1943), 8-10, 72
Budget, U.S. (1947), 344-45 Cassidy, Henry, 88
Bulgaria: surrender of, 90-91; occupation Casualties, W orld W ar II, 80
of, 95; peace treaty with, 263, 275-76, Catholic Church: and lend-lease to Soviet
279-82, 288-89, 323; and Greek civil Union, 40-41; and communism, 52-
war, 348 55; and Poland, 140-46
Bullitt, W illiam C , 16», 43-44, 54-55, Catholic World, 53
63-65, 85 Chamberlain, Neville, 287, 291
Burns, James MacGregor, 27-28» Chamberlin, William Henry, 42-43
Burton, Harold H., 156 Chase National Bank, 188
Bush, Vannevar, 86, 250, 270-71 Chiang Kai-shek, 49, 78, 211-14, 259,
Bushfield, Harlan, 152 282, 286, 352
Index 385

China: and war against Japan, 78,211-14; 272-73, 277-79, 332; and domestic
at London Foreign Ministers* Confer­ communism, 257-58; and demobili­
ence (1945), 265-66; civil war in, zation, 261-63; and reorientation of
282, 341; see also Communism policy toward Soviet Union, 274, 290-
Chinese Eastern Railroad, 78 96, 314, 356-57; see also House of
Christian Science Monitor, 42 Representatives, U.S.; Senate, U.S.
Churchill, Winston S.: on Atlantic Char­ Congress of Industrial Organizations, 58
ter, 3; and military strategy, 66-72, 76, Connally, Tom: on abolition of Comin­
88, 206-11; on atomic bomb, 87, 245; tern, 48-49; and international organi­
and Italian surrender, 89-90; spheie- zation, 150,295; and international con­
of-influence arrangement with Stalin trol of atomic energy, 254-55,272,278;
(1944), 91; and Germany, 102,120-21, and domestic control of atomic energy,
128; and Greece, 154-55; and Soviet 255n; on Byrnes, 286; and Council of
Union, 199, 207-9, 308-9; and Davies Foreign Ministers’ meetings, 324
mission (1945), 231; and Fulton speech Connally resolution (1943), 150
(1946), 306-10, 313, 338 Cox, Oscar, 4, 21, 26«, 60, 143, 229
Ciechanowski, Jan, 136, 140-41, 145, 147 Crowley, Leo T., 60, 192, 196, 218-19,
Cincinnati Post, 35 222-23
Clay, Lucius D., 236, 240, 242, 318, 327- Currie, Lauchlin, 21, 195
30 Curry, George, 289«
Clayton, William C , 155, 192-93, 261 Curzon line, 136«, 158, 161
Clifford, Clark M., 288, 321-23, 337, 350- Czechoslovak coup (1948), 341, 352
51
Cohen, Benjamin V., 277, 312 Daily Worker, 257, 339
Cold W ar, origins of, 353-61 Danaher, John A., 140
Collado, Emilio G., 191-92, 222 Daniels, Jonathan, 205«, 243«
Colmer, William M., 259-61 Darlan, Jean François, 9, 88
Comintern, 32-33, 47-56, 296-97, 300, Davies, John Paton, 319
303 Davies, Joseph E.: as ambassador to Soviet
Commerce Department, U.S., 184 Union (1937-38), 34-35; on Stalin,
Communism: and Soviet foreign policy, 35; on communism, 36-37, 48; on
32-62, 296-304, 313, 318-23, 354-55; postwar relations with Soviet Union,
in U.S., 33, 56-61, 189, 257-58, 297, 37, 200, 204-5, 229, 302«, 314; visit
316; in Europe, 49, 97, 257-58, 297, to Moscow (1943), 45, 48; and 1944
300, 327, 348; in Latin America, 51- election, 48-49; and second front, 71;
52, 300; and Catholic Church, 52-55; and separate peace, 73; and Eastern Eu­
in China, 62», 213-14, 286, 352; and rope, 136, 143, 162«; on international
British loan (1946), 343; and Truman organization, 156; and Byrnes, 162«,
Doctrine, 350-52; see also Public opin­ 264, 267, 287; and Truman, 204-5,
ion, U.S. 230-31, 243, 273, 287; and Churchill,
Communist International, see Comintern 231, 307; at Potsdam Conference
Conant, James B., 86, 278-79 (1945), 242-43; see also Mission to
Congress, U.S.: and economic assistance to Moscow (Davies); “Mission to Mos­
Soviet Union, 175, 179-81, 191-97, cow” (film)
215-24, 259-61; postwar reassertion Davis, Elmer, 313, 341
of influence over foreign policy, 246, Davis, Forrest, 136, 153
254-63, 344-46; and international con­ Davis, Kenneth S., 39«
trol of atomic energy, 247, 252-57, Dean, Vera Micheles, 49, 226
386 Index

Deane, John R., 81-87, 195, 199, 202, 356-57; and second front, 16, 69; and
206, 212 international organization, 30, 134,
Declaration on Liberated Europe (1945), 149-57, 201; and postwar treatment of
163-64, 166, 172, 241, 263, 265, 280- Germany, 100-1, 133-34; and 1944
81 election, 134, 143-49; and U.S. eco­
De Gaulle, Charles, 14, 326 nomic assistance to Soviet Union, 190,
Demobilization, 261-63, 274, 317, 337, 197, 202, 260; and atomic bomb, 246,
341-43, 356 264-67; see also Public opinion, U.S.,
Democratic Party: and communism, 59- and names o f individual countries
61; and Eastern Europe, 134, 147-49; Eastman, Max, 43, 55
and Wallace, 339-40 Economic determinism, 358-59
Depression, fear of postwar, 21, 174-76, Eden, Anthony, 13, 15, 89, 97, 101,106,
188-89, 223 118, 135-36
Despres, Emile, 125 Ehrenburg, Ilya, 88-89, 280»
Dewey, John, 43-44 Eisenhower, Dwight D.: and military strat­
Dewey, Thomas E., 29, 58-59, 146-47, egy, 9, 67, 70, 114, 207-9; on Soviet
149 Union, 67, 69; and Berlin, 75-76,207-
Dies, Martin, 48, 258 8; appointed Supreme Commander, Al­
Dingell, John, 139, 145-46 lied Expeditionary Force, 77; and Italian
Dirksen, Everett M., 223 surrender, 89-90; on military govern­
Disarmament, 98, 168, 328-30, 338 ment, 102-3; and postwar treatment of
Divine, Robert A., 17» Germany, 116, 118-19, 122-24; and
Domestic politics and origins of Cold W ar, demobilization, 262,306»; and Turkish
357-60 crisis (1946), 336
Dorn, W alter L., 109» Elbrick, C. Burke, 313
Douglas, Lewis, 236 Elections (1944): and communism, 33,
Douglas, W illiam O., 300 56-61; and Morgenthau Plan, 121; and
Drury, Allen, 152, 154 Eastern Europe, 134, 138-39, 143-49;
Dudos, Jacques, 257-58, 297 and Polish-Americans, 134, 138-39,
Dulles, Foster Rhea, 39 143-49; and lend-lease, 179
Dulles, John Foster: and international or­ ------ (1946), 289, 295-96, 343-44
ganization, 29; and 1944 election, 29, Elsey, George M., 322», 350
147; on Poland, 147; at San Francisco Emergency High Commission for Liber­
Conference (1945), 228, 230, 290- ated Europe, 159-60, 163
91; and postwar relations with Soviet Estonia, see Baltic States
Union, 230, 290-94, 320; at London Ethridge, Mark, 275, 279-80, 288
Foreign Ministers* Conference (1945), European Advisory Commission, 102,105-
267, 290; at London General Assembly 14, 122, 124, 129
meeting (1946), 292-94 Executive Committee on Economic For­
Dumbarton Oaks Conference (1944), 27- eign Policy, 115-17
29, 128», 153, 156, 160 Export-Import Bank, 180, 192-93, 197,
Dunn, James C., 129, 155, 313« 216, 222-23, 261
Duranty, W alter, 50
Durbrow, Elbridge, 47, 51-52, 182, 192, Fascism, 32», 53-54, 59, 160, 338
319 Federal Bureau of Investigation, 38, 301
Feis, Herbert, 266»
Eastern Europe: Soviet aims in, 14-17, 64, Ferguson, Homer, 298
69, 133-73, 201-6, 241-42, 263-65, Finland: Soviet boundary claims in, 14,
Index 387

135,158; occupation of, 95; peace treaty Eastern Europe, 15; U.S. suspicion of,
with, 263,275, 323; and war debts, 342 .44, 67, 70, 76-77, 154-55, 308-9, 317,
Fischer, Louis, 43, 55 338; and international control of atomic
Fish, Hamilton, 55 energy, 269-73,277-79; see also Greece,
Flynn, Edward J., 160 Lend-lease, U.S., to Great Britain; Loan,
Foreign Affairs, 323 U.S., to Great Britain; Public opinion,
Foreign aid, 342-46, 356 U.S.; Turkey
Foreign Economic Administration, 130», Greece: 1944 uprising, 14,154-56; British
196, 219 influence in, 91, 242, 264; and Truman
Foreign Policy Association, 49, 294 Doctrine, 348-52
Forrestal, James V.: and postwar relations Green, Dwight, 291
with Soviet Union, 199, 206, 249; and Greenfield, Kent Roberts, 65»
Eastern Europe, 202; and Soviet entry Grew, Joseph C : and JCS 1067, 129-30;
into war against Japan, 211-14; and post­ on Russian loan, 193-94, 222; on Tru­
war treatment of Germany, 237; and in­ man, 199; and Soviet entry into war
ternational control of atomic energy, against Japan, 211-12; and lend-lease,
249, 268-69; on demobilization, 261, 218-19; on demobilization, 262; on
274-75, 337, 345; on communism communism and Soviet foreign policy,
and Soviet foreign policy, 297-302, 297-98
318; and Turkish crisis (1946), 336-37 Gromyko, Andrei, 151, 311, 334
Fortune, 188, 223, 321 Groves, Leslie R., 250-51, 301
France: Allied invasion of, 67, 72, 77, Guffey, Joseph, 148
112», 114; and occupation of Germany,
129-30, 220, 326-29; at London For­ Halifax, Lord, 298
eign Ministers’ Conference (1945), 265- Hamilton, A. M., 187
66 Hannegan, Robert, 148, 307, 347
Frankfurter, Felix, 86, 229 Harriman, W . Averell: on communism
“Free Germany” committee, 73, 88 and Soviet foreign policy, 51, 201, 296,
300; and Soviet entry into war against
Germany: invasion of Soviet Union Japan, 78-79, 211-13; and economic
(1941), 3-4; declaration of war on U.S., assistance to Soviet Union, 82-83, 86,
5; Allied invasion of (1945), 75-76, 176-83, 189-96, 202, 216-22; ap­
206-11; surrender of, 88, 92-94; post­ pointed ambassador to Soviet Union,
war treatment of, 95-132, 215-17, 220- 83, 176; and military cooperation with
22, 236-41, 317, 325-31; zonal bound­ Soviet Union, 86-87, 92-94; and East­
aries in, 109-11, 208-10, 239-41; Al­ ern Europe, 136-37, 144-45, 162«, 171,
lied Control Council in, 123-24, 129, 176, 201-6, 234; concern over U.S.
208, 235, 241, 281; see also Disarma­ economy, 176-77, 179, 181; and post­
ment; JCS 1067; Morgenthau Plan; war relations with Soviet Union, 199,
Potsdam Conference (1945); Repara­ 201-2, 242; on Truman, 203-4, 218»;
tions; Unconditional surrender; W ar at San Francisco Conference (1945),
criminals 227; and Hopkins mission (1945), 231-
“Germany first” policy, 66-67, 70 32, 235; and occupation of Japan, 275-
Gillis, James, 53 76; on Byrnes, 286, 314; resignation,
Gimbel, John, 326», 330» 302
Goering, Hermann, 88 Hatch, Carl, 156
Great Britain: and U.S. war aims, 2-3, 22; Henderson, Loy, 47, 85, 336»
and military strategy, 4, 69-70; and Herring, George C , Jr., 219»
388 Index

Hickerson, John D., 136, 158-39 lekes, Harold, 314

Hill, Lister, 156 Imperialism, 53, 309, 338, 342
Hilldring, John, 104 Independent Citizens Committee of the
Hillman, Sidney, 58-60 Arts, Sciences, and Professions, 339
Hitler, Adolf, 4-6, 10-11, 63-64, 73, 88, Industrial Marketing, 187-88
95-96, 100, 207, 242 Inglis, Thomas B., 299
Hodge, John R., 318 International Christian Endeavor, 40
Hoover, Herbert, 58, 147, 236-37 International Monetary Fund, 22
Hoover, J. Edgar, 301 International organization: U.S. wartime
Hopkins, Harry L.: meeting with Stalin planning for, 23-31, 134; and Atlantic
(1941), 5; on Roosevelt, 12n\ on secret Charter, 149-57; and Eastern Euiope,
commitments, 13; on U.S. communists, 149-57, 165-71; Vandenberg on, 167-
56; on occupation of Germany, 97,210; 70; Roosevelt’s death and, 170-71; see
on Yalta Conference (1945), 164; and also United Nations
economic assistance to Soviet Union, International Red Cross, 135
180-81; and postwar relations with Rus­ Inverchapel, Lord, 337»
sia, 200; meeting with Stalin (1945), Iran: withdrawal of British and Soviet
213-14, 220, 229, 232-36 troops from, 242, 282, 288, 301;
House, Edwin M., 13 March, 1946, crisis, 309-12, 314, 316,
House of Representatives, U.S.: Commit: 318, 324
tee on Un-American Activities, 48,258, “Iron curtain,” 208, 272, 307-9
301; Foreign Affairs Committee, 166, Isolationism: Roosevelt on, 1; and inter­
196, 259»; Select Committee on Post­ national organization, 28-29, 150, 156;
war Economic Policy and Planning, Davies on, 44-45; and European Ad­
259-60 visory Commission, 107; Vandenberg
Houston P,ost, 35 on, 167-70; Hopkins on, 234; and post­
Hull, Cordell: and unconditional surren­ war policy toward Soviet Union, 338-46
der, 8»; and Eastern Europe, 15-16, 91, Italy: invasion of, 72; surrender of, 88-91,
136, 140-41, 150-51; and Atlantic 106; occupation of, 95; peace tteaty
Charter, 15-16; and postwar economic with, 241-42, 323-24; colonies, 264,
policy, 18-22; personality, 19; and in­ 267, 274
ternational organization, 26-31, 150-
54; and abolition of Comintern, 47-48; Jackson, Robert H., 19
and postwar treatment of Germany, 101, Januszewski, Frank, 142, 149, 170
113, 118, 120; and European Advisory Japan: Soviet nonaggression pact with
Commission, 106-7, 113; and lend- (1941), 4, 266; Soviet entry into war
lease to Great Britain, 120; resignation against, 64-65, 73-79, 207, 211-15,
as Secretary of State, 126, 154; and 235, 242-44; occupation of, 95, 212,
Polish-Americans, 140-41, 146; arid 265-66, 275-76, 281-82; see also Un­
economic assistance to Soviet Union, conditional surrender
177, 180-81 JCS 1067, 121-25, 129-31,236-37
Hungary: surrender of, 90-91; occupation Johnson, Edwin C , 150, 245, 256
of, 95; peace treaty with, 263, 275, 323 Johnson Act (1934), 180, 188, 222
Hurley, Patrick J., 49, 211, 214 Johnston, Eric, 45, 48, 185-87, 223
Huston, W aiter, 44 Joint Chiefs of Staff: and military strategy,
Hyde Park Agreement on Atomic Bomb 70, 75-76, 207-8; and postwar relations
(1944), 87 with Soviet Union, 75; and Soviet
Hydrogen bomb, 251 entry into war against Japan, 79, 212,
Index 389

214; and lend-lease, 83; and surrender 314; and communism, 286-87, 301;
of German satellites, 91; and Berne in­ and Churchill’s Fulton speech, 308
cident, 92; and military government, Lebanon, 301
104; and European Advisory Commis­ Lend-lease, U.S., to Great Britain, 120,
sion, 108-9; and postwar treatment of 179, 197
Germany, 112-13, 113; and interna­ ------ to Soviet Union: origins, 5; and U.S.
tional control of atomic energy, 230 Catholics, 40-41; Bullitt on, 63-64; dif­
Jones, Joseph M., 346-47 ficulties with Russians over, 81-82; ter­
mination of, 83, 178-82, 194-97, 215-
Katyn Woods massacre, 133 20
Kelly, Edward J., 148 Lesinski, John, 142
Kennan, George F.: on Davies, 34; on Lewis, John L., 56, 347
communism and Soviet foreign policy, Liberals, U.S., and Soviet Union, 337-41
52, 297, 302-4, 316, 318, 321-23; Life, 38, 54-55, 154, 320
and European Advisory Commission, Lilienthal, David E., 332-35, 347
106-7; on Germany, 110, 327-28; on Lindley, Ernest K., 309, 345
spheres of influence, 156-57; and eco­ Lippmann, W alter, 299
nomic assistance to Soviet Union, 183, Lithuania, see Baltic States
221; on Eastern Europe, 280, 322-23; Loan, U.S., to Great Britain, 317, 342-43
and “long telegram” (1946), 284, 302- ------ to Soviet Union: as instrument for
4, 313, 327, 359; on Byrnes, 286; and influencing Soviet political behavior, 23,
“X “ article (1947), 323; on Truman 43, 85, 189-94, 216-17, 222-24, 260-
Doctrine, 350-51 61, 355-57; and U.S. economy, 175-76,
Kilgore, Harley M., 309 181-89, 223; Harriman on, 175-82,
Kirk, Alexander, 286 189-94, 216-17, 222; Roosevelt and,
Knutson, Harold, 255 177-78, 191; Truman and, 217-18,
Kolko, Gabriel, 3», 50-51», 76» 222-24, 260-61, 343»; see also Con­
Korea, 212, 214, 341, 352 gress, U.S.; Lend-lease, U.S., to Soviet
Kravchenko, Victor A., 55 Union; Reparations
Krock, Arthur, 35», 296, 305, 314, 340 Lodge, Henry Cabot, 345
Kurile Islands, 78-79, 212 London Foreign Ministers' Conference
(1945) , 251, 263-67, 275-76, 280,
La Follette, Robert, 272 290-91
Landis, Gerald M., 258 London General Assembly meeting
Lane, Arthur Bliss, 313 (1946) , 292-94, 306
Lange, Oscar, 145» Long, Breckinridge, 13, 48, 73, 143
Langer, William L., 355» Louisville Courier-Journal, 275
Latin America: communism in, 51-52; at Lubin, Isador, 143-44, 220-21
San Francisco Conference (1945), 226 Luce, Clare Boothe, 59
Latvia, see Baltic States Luce, Henry, 299», 320
Lauterbach, Richard, 56 Lvov, 158, 161
Lawrence, David, 166 Lyons, Eugene, 43
League of Nations, 24-31, 134, 150, 152
Leahy, William D.: and Berne incident, MacArthur, Douglas, 5, 37, 212, 266,
93; on France, 111-12; and Eastern Eu­ 276, 281
rope, 137, 163, 202-4, 235»; and Tru­ McCarthyism, 352
man, 204, 242, 304; and atomic bomb, McCloy, John J., 107, 123-24, 130, 211,
245, 250, 301; and Byrnes, 286-88, 264
390 Index

McCormack, John W ., 49-50 Francisco Conference (1945), 172,200-

McCormick, Anne O’Hare, 306 1, 225-28, 230; and U.S. economic as­
McKellar, Kenneth, 119 sistance to Soviet Union, 178,185.190,
Mackenzie King, William L., 252-53,270- 218; visit to Washington (1945), 201-
72, 301» 6, 218; on Roosevelt, 205; at London
MacLeish, Archibald, 156», 159-60, 229 Foreign Ministers’ Conference (1945),
McMahon, Brien, 292-93 264-67, 276; at Moscow Foreign Min­
Macmillan, Harold, 111-112» isters’ Conference (1945), 280; and
McNaughton, Frank, 256 Iranian crisis (1946), 312
McNeill, William H., 164», 330» Monroe Doctrine, 226
Manchuria, 78, 212, 214, 301 Montreux Convention, 242, 336
Manhattan Project, 248, 250 Morgan, J. P., 57
Marshall, George C.: on military strategy, Morgenthau, Henry, Jr.: relationship with
66-70, 74, 115, 209; on Great Britain, Hull, 20; and postwar treatment of
67»; postwar relations with Soviet Germany, 117-25, 130-31, 331; and
Union, 74, 203; military cooperation lend-lease to Great Britain, 120; and
with Soviet Union, 83, 85; Soviet entry economic assistance to Soviet Union,
into war against Japan, 212, 214; mis­ 184-85, 191-94
sion to China (1946), 282; appointed Morgenthau Plan, 113, 118-25, 131,194,
Secretary of State, 345, 347-48; and 236-38
Truman Doctrine, 346», 348-49 Moscow Foreign Ministers’ Conference
Martin, Joseph W., 291, 344 (1943), 22, 28, 78, 101, 106, 137,
Marxism-Leninism, see Communism 140, 151, 159», 177
Mason, Edward S., 192 ------ (1945), 276-84, 306
Matthews, H. Freeman, 327 Mosely, Philip E., 113, 118
Mein Kam pf (H itler), 320 Mowrer, Edgar Ansel, 155
Merrow, Chester E., 255 Mruk, Joseph, 142
Messersmith, George, 49 Mundt, Karl, 196
Mikolajczyk, Stanislaw, 144, 145», 158, Munich Conference (1938), 16, 36, 40,
173 287, 305, 356
Mikoyan, Anastas 1., 185 Murphy, Robert D., 9, 101, 327
Military government, see Army, U.S. Mussolini, Benito, 5, 88-89
Military-Political Commission, 89-90,
105-6 Nation, 44, 226, 268
Military strategy, U.S.: and relations with National Association of Manufacturers, 57
Soviet Union, 63-94, 206-15; and National Catholic Welfare Confeience,
atomic bomb, 78, 213-14, 245; see 145
also Public opinion, U.S. National Citizens’ Political Action Com­
Mission to Moscow (Davies), 35-36 mittee, 230, 339
‘Mission to Moscow" (film), 44-45 National Council of Americans of Polish
Mobilization, U.S., 64, 79-80 Descent, 142
Molotov, V. M.: visit to London and National Geographic Society, 110
W ashington (1942), 16-17, 25, 68- National Opinion Research Center, 151
69; and Eastern Europe, 16-17, 69, National Research Council, 86
144-45, 163, 171, 205; and second Navy Department, U.S., 213», 218, 336-
front, 68-69; and Berne incident, 92- 37
94; and postwar treatment of Germa­ Nazi-Soviet Pact (1939), 35, 36, 39, 74
ny, 101, 220, 240-41, 329-30; and San Nelson, Donald M., 176-77
Index 391

New Deal, 21, $7, 59,149, 189 Patterson, Robert P., 249, 261, 268, 270,
New Republic, 156, 166, 170, 225-26, 318, 345
302, 313 Pauley, Edwin M., 220-21, 242, 326
Newsweek, 195, 262, 293-94, 310, 319 Pearson, Drew, 301»
New York Foreign Ministers* Conference Pendergast, Tom, 243
(1946), 317, 323-25 Penrose, E. F., 118
New York Herald Tribune, 35 Pepper, Gaude, 259», 309, 314
New York Post, 155 Perkins, James A., 130»
New York Times, 38, 45, 50, 165, 193- Perry, Ralph Barton, 38
94, 300, 345 Pershing, John J., 100
New York University Institute of Inter­ Philbin, Philip J., 58»
national Finance, 187 Pius X II, Pope, 40, 53, 146»
Niebuhr, Reinhold, 37 Poland: and Catholic Church, 52-53,140;
Niles, David K., 142-43 and Atlantic Charter, 55, 140; Katyn
NKVD, 38, 84» Woods massacre, 135; Soviet boundary
North Africa, Anglo-American invasion claims in, 14, 135-61; Roosevelt on,
of, 9, 66-72, 103 135-39, 144-45,160-65,172; and 1944
election, 138,143-49; elections in, 162,
235; Yalta agreement on, 161-73, 201-
Oder-Neisse line, 129, 239-42, 328
6, 233, 265, 275, 281; and San Fran­
Office of Scientific Research and Develop­
cisco Conference (1945), 171-72, 225,
ment, 86, 250
227; and Reparations Commission, 220;
Office of Strategic Services, 92, 140, 145,
see also Curzon line; Oder-Neisse line;
183
Polish-Americans; Public opinion, U.S.
Office of W ar Mobilization and Reconver­
------ Government-in-exile (London), 135,
sion, 160, 239
137, 140-41, 158, 161-62
O’Laughlin, John G , 286
------ Provisional Government (Lublin),
OMahoney, Joseph C , 147
154, 158, 161-62, 225, 234
One World (W illkie), 39-40
------ Provisional Government of National
'O pen Door’*policy, 214, 339, 357
Unity, 163, 234-35
Oppenheimer, J. Robert, 251, 269
Poling, Daniel A., 40
Orlemanski, Stanislaus, 145-46
Polish-American Businessmen’s Associa­
Oumansky, Constantine, 40
tion (Chicago), 147
Outer Mongolia, 78
Polish-American Congress, 142-43,148-49
OVBRLORD, 76-77
Polish-Americans: and 1944 election, 134,
Overseas Press Club, 304-5, 313
138-49; Roosevelt and, 138, 156; and
Yalta Polish agreement, 166-70; Tru­
Pacific Ocean, U.S. bases in, 156 man on, 235
Pacifism, 44, 341 Polish Daily News, 142
Palestine, 342 Polish Information Center, 144
Pares, Sir Bernard, 38 Political Action Committee, see Congress
Paris Foreign Ministers* Conference of Industrial Organizations
(1946), 317, 323-25, 328-31 Poole, DeW itt C , 145«
Paris Peace Conference (1946), 317, 323- Portal, Sir Charles, 67»
25, 340 Port Arthur, China, 78
Parks, Marion, 52 Potsdam Conference (1945): preparations
Pasvolsky, Leo, 128», 160, 277 for, 231-32, 235; and Eastern Europe,
Paterson, Thomas G., 54», 194», 359» 235, 241-42, 263-64; and postwar
392 Index

Potsdam Conference {Continued) 1946 election, 289, 295-96, 341, 344;

treatment of Germany, 238-41, 325- and 1947 budget, 344-45
31; and Council of Foreign Ministers, Reston, James, 193-94, 262, 273-74, 290,
241; and Soviet entry into war against 294-95, 311«, 314, 319
Japan, 242; U.S. reaction to, 242-43; Revisionism, Cold War, 356-60
and atomic bomb, 244-46 Reynolds, Robert R., 150
Problems o f Leninism (Stalin), 320 Reynolds, Thomas F., 226
Prussia, East, 158 Rhineland, 100, 103, 326
Public opinion, U.S.: and Soviet Union, Riddleberger, James W., 125
3-4, 17, 46, 56, 151, 155-56, 159, Rockefeller, Nelson A., 155
189, 206, 230, 233, 289, 315, 320-21, Roosevelt, Eleanor, 9, 269, 293, 309
356; and Eastern Europe, 17, 134, 138- Roosevelt, Franklin D.: and U.S. war aims,
39, 151, 157-60, 265, 289; and inter­ I- 31; and lessons of the past, 2, 8-10,
national organization, 26,157; and com­ I I - 13, 20-21, 23-31, 100, 134, 165-
munism, 32-33, 56, 257-58, 320-21; 66; and Great Britain, 4, 66, 70; and
and fascism, 32»; and levels of informa­ economic assistance to Soviet Union, 5,
tion on foreign policy, 46, 321; and 40, 82-88, 177-78, 191-97, 200, 215,
military strategy, 65-68, 71-72, 80; 224; and military cooperation with So­
and Morgenthau Plan, 120; and Great viet Union, 5, 9, 64-66, 73, 94, 133-
Britain, 155-56, 159, 230; and Yalta 34; and postwar relations with Soviet
Conference (1945), 165-66; and atomic Union, 6-7, 41, 47, 64, 100-1, 153;
bomb, 247, 252, 257, 269»; and Iran­ “grand design“ for postwar world, 6-7,
ian crisis (1946), 312; and foreign 33, 47, 66, 199; and unconditional sur­
aid, 346; and Truman Doctrine, 347-51 render, 8-10, 100; and self-determina­
tion, 11-13, 133-34, 136; personality
Quebec Conference (1944), 120 of, 12-14, 27, 30, 102; and Atlantic
Charter, 12, 15, 134-39, 155, 165-69;
and Eastern Europe, 15-18, 94, 100-1,
Rankin, John, 57, 258, 301 133-39, 144-45, 157-73; and postwar
R A N K IN (C ), 76» economic policy, 20-21, 115, 224; on
Ready, Michael J., 145 trusteeships, 24, 136; and “Four Police­
Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act, 20 men,” 24-27, 153; and international or­
Reconstruction Finance Corporation, 287- ganization, 24-31,165-71; and Catholic
88 Church, 40-41, 146», 160; and 1944
Reparations: State Department on, 98-99, election, 59-61, 134, 138-39, 147-49;
112-16; at Yalta Conference (1945), military strategy, 65-72, 75-76, 79-80,
126-29; and Russian loan, 184, 355; 88, 206-8; and Soviet entry into war
Truman Administration and, 215-17, against Japan, 78-79, 211; and Yalta
220-22, 238-41, 244; Potsdam agree­ Conference (1945), 78-79,126-29,157-
ment on, 238-41, 244; suspension of 73, 191-93; and atomic bomb, 86-87,
shipments of, 329-30 245; and Italian surrender, 89-90; death
Reparations Commission, 129, 215, 220- of, 93-94, 131, 170-71, 200-1; and
21 postwar treatment of Germany, 96-
Republican Party: and international or­ 97, 99-102, 105, 109-11, 113-14, 119-
ganization, 28-30; and isolationism, 22, 124-25, 129-31; and State Depart­
45, 169; and 1944 election, 57-59, 146- ment, 102,126; and European Advisory
49; and postwar relations with Soviet Commission, 107, 114; and Polish-
Union, 230,283-84,289-96,305-6; and Americans, 138, 147-49, 161, 163; re-
Index 393

lationship with Congress, 152-57, 169- SLEDGEHAMMER, 69-70

70; health of, 156, 164; and Truman, Smith, Gaddis, 3»
198-200; administrative methods of, Smith, W alter Bedell, 319, 334-35
199; see also Truman, Harry S. Sobolev, A. A., 128»
Roosevelt, James, 315 Socialism, 44, 192, 342
Ropes, Ernest C , 184 Soong, T. V., 214, 235
Rosenman, Samuel I., 60, 147 South Manchurian Railroad, 78
Rossow, Robert, Jr., 310 Soviet Constitution of 1936, 41
ROUND-UP, 6 8 Soviet Protocol Committee, 219
Rovere, Richard, 169» Soviet Union: war aims of, 2-3, 354; for­
Rozmarek, Charles, 142, 148 eign policy, motivation of, 3», 201,
Ruhr, 120, 326, 330 273-74, 283-84, 313, 318, 349-51,
Rumania: Soviet boundary claims in, 14, 354-55; military cooperation with U.S.,
135, 158; surrender of, 90-91; occupa­ 5, 63-94, 133-34, 158-59, 171, 207-
tion of, 95; Soviet influence on, 164, 15, 354; postwar relations with U.S.,
171-72; peace treaty with, 263, 275- 6-7, 22, 41, 47, 64, 100-1, 153, 282-
76, 279-82, 288-89, 323 315, 356; and international organiza­
Russell, Richard, 254 tion, 28, 158, 201, 224-30; and sur­
Russia, see Soviet Union render of Germany and German satel­
Russian Orthodox Church, 33, 146» lites, 73, 88-91, 94, 171; influence of
bureaucracy in, 81, 359; and atomic
Sadowski, George, 147 bomb, 86-87, 244-57, 276-79, 334-35,
Sakhalin, 78-79 341; and postwar treatment of Germa­
Salvemini, Gaetano, 55 ny, 98-99, 101-2, 128-29, 184, 239-41,
San Francisco Conference (1945), 28-30, 327-31; and U.S. economic assistance
164, 166, 169-72, 200-3, 222-30, to, 174-90, 202, 215-24, 259-61, 338,
235, 257, 291» 342-43, 355-57; demobilization in,
Saturday Evening Post, 153 261»; and postwar economic plans, 299-
Scott, John, 49 300; and origins of Cold W ar, 353-61;
Second front, 9, 16, 65-73, 356-57 see also Communism; Eastern Europe;
Selective Service Act, 262, 341 Japan; Public opinion, U.S.
Self-determination, 11-13, 50, 63, 133-34, Spellman, Francis, 90, 136
138, 151, 175 Spheres of influence: Churchill-Stalin
Senate, U.S.: and United* Nations, 28-30, agreement on (1944), 91; in Eastern
134, 149-57, 203, 225, 228; Foreign Europe, 134-35, 159», 164; and inter­
Relations Committee, 169, 254, 267, national organization, 149-50,155,157;
272, 274, 277, 293; and lend-lease to in Latin America, 226
Soviet Union, 196-97; Special Commit­ Stalin, Joseph: and unconditional surren­
tee on Atomic Energy, 254, 277, 292- der, 9-10; paranoia of, 10, 359; and in­
93; and peace treaties with German sat­ ternational communist movement, 33,
ellites, 265, 267 48-49, 299-300, 318-23, 354-55;
Sevareid, Eric, 300 Davies on, 36; Chamberlin on, 42; and
SHAEF, see Supreme Headquarters, Allied 1944 election, 60-61; suspicion of Al­
Expeditionary Force lies, 80, 88, 94, 303, 316, 359; and
Sheen, Fulton J., 53 Italian surrender, 88-91; and Germany,
Shuttle-bombing, 83-84 92-94, 101-2, 128, 329-30, 354; and
Sino-Soviet treaty (1945), 78 Soviet-American economic relations,
S.K.F. Industries, 187 177-78, 186, 259-60; on Roosevelt,
394 Index

Stalin, Joseph (Continued) visory Commission, 107; and postwar

205; on China, 213-14; on lend-lease treatment of Germany, 115, 118, 123,
termination, 220; and atomic bomb, 130, 237-38, 242; and Eastern Europe,
244, 279»; and Iran, 310; see also 158,202,226; and lend-lease, 195,218;
Communism; Eastern Europe; Japan; on Truman, 199, 218; and San Fran­
Second front; Soviet Union cisco Conference (1945), 202-3,228-29
Stalingrad, battle of, 48, 74, 135 Stone, I. F., 167, 226
Standley, William H., 47-49, 69, 73-74, Strout, Richard L., 156»
82-84, 87, 89 Sulzberger, C. L., 286, 314, 319
State Department, U.S.: and postwar eco­ Supreme Headquarters, Allied Expedition­
nomic policy, 20-22; and international ary Force, 116-17, 119, 122-24, 207
organization, 26-29, 153, 203; Russian Swing, Raymond Gram, 226-27, 269, 300
experts in, 44, 86»; and communism, Syria, 301
51-52, 286-87, 297-98, 301, 303; on
separate peace, 73; and Soviet entry into Taft, Robert A., 153, 223, 344
war against Japan, 79,211-14; and Ital­ TASS, 311
ian surrender, 89; and postwar treatment Taylor, Glen, 309
of Germany, 96-99, 105, 109-13, 115- Teheran Conference (1943): and military
18, 122-27, 129-31, 209, 331; and strategy, 75, 77-78; and postwar treat­
European Advisory Commission, 108- ment of Germany, 101-2; and Eastern
9, 113; and Eastern Europe, 158-60, Europe, 137-39, 157, 161; Roosevelt
263; and economic assistance to Soviet on, 153
Union, 182-84, 191-94; and Byrnes, Thompson, Dorothy, 44
238-39, 278», 286», 347; and inter­ Thorez, Maurice, 327
national control of atomic energy, 272- Time, 49, 165, 168, 226, 235, 300-1, 307
73, 277; and Marshall, 347-48 Toynbee, Arnold, 320
State-War-Navy Coordinating Commit­ Trade barriers, reduction of, 18-23,63,99,
tee, 126 174, 344-45
Steinhardt, Laurence A., 41 "TRB,” 156, 166, 225-26, 313
Stettinius, Edward R., Jr.: on postwar treat­ Treasury Department, U.S.: and postwar
ment of Germany, 124-30; appointed economic policy, 20-22; and postwar
Secretary of State, 126,155; and Eastern treatment of Germany, 96,117-25,130-
Europe, 157-60, 163; on Yalta Confer­ 31, 237-38; and economic assistance to
ence (1945), 164; on postwar relations Soviet Union, 184-85, 191-94
with Soviet Union, 172; on U.S. eco­ Trotsky, Leon, 48
nomic assistance to Soviet Union, 191; Truman, Harry S.: and postwar treatment
at San Francisco Conference (1945), of Germany, 131, 220-22, 237-41, 331;
225-26, 291»; on Vandenberg, 294; and economic assistance to Soviet Un­
appointed ambassador to United Na­ ion, 194», 197, 218-23, 260-61, 343»;
tions, 295 becomes President, 198; continuity of
Stewart, Tom, 255-56 policy with Roosevelt, 198-245; and
Stimson, Henry L.: and military strategy, postwar relations with Soviet Union,
70, 74, 77; on Stalin, 77, 94; and mili­ 198, 210, 217-18, 230, 243, 281, 283-
tary cooperation with Soviet Union, 85, 84, 288-90, 304, 307-9, 315, 321; ad­
93-94, 200; and postwar relations with ministrative methods, 198-99, 218»;
Soviet Union, 85, 94, 209, 248; and and Eastern Europe, 201-6, 235, 263-
atomic bomb, 87, 213-14, 244-45, 248- 64, 274; and military strategy, 206-15;
53, 264, 273, 335; and European Ad­ and atomic bomb, 231-32, 244-46,
Index 395

253-54, 268-73, 278-79, 293, 332- Vandenberg, Arthur H.: on international

35; at Potsdam Conference ( 1945), 231- organization, 30, 152-54, 167-69; and
32, 238-44; and Hopkins mission Atlantic Charter, 30, 140, 146, 153,
(1945), 231-36; and State Department, 155, 167; and U.S. communists, 61;
237; and demobilization, 261-63, 341; and 1944 election, 61, 146, 149; and
and Byrnes, 283-90; and Republican Poland, 140, 146, 149, 166-70, 225,
Party, 289, 292-93, 344-47; and Ken- 227-28; and Eastern Europe, 146, 167-
nan, 303; and Turkish crisis (1946), 68; and Polish-Americans, 146, 149,
336-37; and Wallace, 338-41; and for­ 167, 169-70; on Yalta Conference
eign aid, 342; and 80th Congress, 344- (1945), 166-70, 291; and German dis­
47; and Truman Doctrine, 346-52 armament, 168, 328-29; and economic
Truman-Attlee-King agreement (1945), assistance to Soviet Union, 179; on
271-72, 277, 279 Truman, 204; at San Francisco Confer­
Truman Doctrine, 317, 346-52 ence (1945), 225-30, 291; and postwar
Tukhachevsky, M. N., 44 relations with Soviet Union, 228, 291-
Turkey: and Potsdam Conference (1945), 96, 313; and international control of
242; Soviet influence in, 289, 317, 336- atomic energy, 253-56, 272, 278, 292-
37; and Truman Doctrine, 348-52 93; and Byrnes, 291-96, 305-6; and
Council of Foreign Ministers' meetings,
317, 324-25, 340-41; and 1947 bud­
Ulam, Adam B., 261« get, 344-45; and Truman Doctrine, 349
Unconditional surrender, 8-10, 30 Vandenberg, Arthur H., Jr., 291-92
Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, see Vernadsky, George, 39
Soviet Union Versailles treaty (1919), 96
United Nations: wartime planning for, 27- Vishinski, Andrei, 90, 171, 296
30, 254; and Atlantic Charter, 134; Se­ Voorhis, Jerry, 256
curity Council veto in, 153, 164, 229, Vorys, John, 195-96
235, 301, 333-35; General Assembly
voting procedure in, 153-54, 170; and Wagner, Robert F., 60
Eastern Europe, 203, 225-26; and Latin Wallace, Henry A.: on lessons of the past,
America, 226; and international control 2; on economic nationalism, 20; and
of atomic energy, 246, 253-57, 270-72, Soviet Union, 37, 300, 315; and vice­
277, 279, 317, 332-35; and Iran, 310- presidency, 198; and international con­
12; see also International organiza­ trol of atomic energy, 256; fired from
tion; London General Assembly meet­ Cabinet, 338-41, 344
ing (1946); San Francisco Conference W ar criminals, 129, 238
(1945) W ar Department, U.S.: on lend-lease to
United Nations Atomic Energy Commis­ Soviet Union, 82-83, 218-19; and post­
sion, 271-72, 279, 282, 314, 334 war treatment of Germany, 97, 102-5,
United Nations Charter, 225, 228, 305 108-10, 121-25, 130-31, 236-37; and
United Nations Conference on Interna­ military government, 102-4, 116-19;
tional Organization, see San Francisco and Soviet entry into war against Japan,
Conference (1945) 213
United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation W arner, Jack, 45
Administration, 259« . W arner Brothers, 44
United States Chamber of Commerce, 45, W ar Production Board, 176
185, 187 Washington Times-Herald, 50
Universal military training, 262, 341 Wegrzynek, Michael F., 142
396 Index

W eintal, Edward, 293 W orking Security Committee, 108-13,

Welles, Sumner: on German invasion of 115
Soviet Union, 4; on Roosevelt, 12», W orld Bank, 22
155; and Hull, 19; resignation of, as W orld W ar I, lessons of: and uncondi­
Undersecretary of State, 19, 54; on in­ tional surrender, 8-10; and secret com­
ternational organization, 24, 26; and mitments, 13, 15-16, 150; and inter­
Bullitt, 54»; on partition of Germany, national organization, 25-26; and rep­
98; on postwar relations with Soviet arations, 127-28, 240, 242
Union, 229 W right, Edwin M., 311
W heeler, Burton K., 152, 156, 166, 168 V

W hite, Harry Dexter, 22, 117-18, 120,

Yalta Conference (1945): and United N a­
185
tions, 28; and Soviet entry into war
W hite, W illiam Allen, 45
against Japan, 78-79, 207, 211-13; and
W hite, W illiam L., 45
postwar treatment of Germany, 126-
Wickard, Claude R., 82
29; and Eastern Europe, 157-65, U.S.
W illett, Edward F., 299
reaction to, 165-70; implementation of
Williams, W illiam A., 357»
Yalta agreements, 171-73, 201-5, 211-
W illis, Raymond, 255
15, 233, 263-66, 281; and economic
W illkie, W endell, 39-40, 48, 71
assistance to Soviet Union, 191-93; see
Wilson, Edwin C , 90, 336
also Public opinion, U.S.
Wilson, Woodrow, 11, 24-31, 134, 137,
Yugoslavia, 91, 220, 348
152, 165-66
W inant, John G., 13. 17,89,106-14,118,
129 Zhukov, G. K., 209-10, 235
Wolff, Karl, 92 Zionism, 342