Диплом: Cold War

the United States and Britain were doing enough to assume their own just

share of the fight. Roosevelt understood that Russia's battle was America's.

"The Russian armies are killing more Axis per­sonnel and destroying more Axis

materiel," he wrote General Douglas MacArthur in 1942, "than all the other

twenty-five United Nations put together." As soon as the Germans invaded

Russia, the president ordered that lend-lease material be made immediately

available to the Soviet Union, instructing his personal aide to get $22

million worth of supplies on their way by July 25—one month after the German

invasion. Roosevelt knew that, unless the Soviets were helped quickly, they

would be forced out of the war, leaving the United States in an untenable

position. "If [only] the Russians could hold the Germans until October 1,"

the president said. At a Cabinet meeting early in August, Roosevelt declared

himself "sick and tired of hearing . . . what was on order"; he wanted to

hear only "what was on the water." Roosevelt's commitment to lend-lease

reflected his deep conviction that aid to the Soviets was both the most

effective way of combating German aggression and the strongest means of

building a basis of trust with Stalin in order to facilitate postwar

cooperation. "I do not want to be in the same position as the English,"

Roosevelt told his Secretary of the Treasury in 1942. "The English promised

the Russians two divisions. They failed. They promised them to help in the

Caucasus. They failed. Every promise the English have made to the Russians,

they have fallen down on. . . . The only reason we stand so well ... is that

up to date we have kept our promises." Over and over again Roosevelt

intervened directly and personally to expedite the shipment of supplies.

"Please get out the list and please, with my full authority, use a heavy

hand," he told one assistant. "Act as a burr under the saddle and get things

moving!"

But even Roosevelt's personal involvement could not end the problems that kept

developing around the lend-lease program. Inevit­ably, bureaucratic tangles

delayed shipment of necessary supplies. Furthermore, German submarine assaults

sank thousands of tons of weaponry. In just one month in 1942, twenty-three of

thirty-seven merchant vessels on their way to the Soviet Union were destroyed,

forcing a cancellation of shipments to Murmansk. Indeed, until late summer of

1942, the Allies lost more ships in submarine attacks than they were

able to build.

Above all, old suspicions continued to creep into the ongoing process of

negotiating and distributing lend-lease supplies. Americans who had learned

during the purges to regard Stalin as "a sort of unwashed Genghis Khan with

blood dripping from his fingertips" could not believe that he had changed his

colors overnight and was now to be viewed as a gentle friend. Many Americans

believed that they were saving the Soviet Union with their supplies, without

recognizing the extent of Soviet suffering or appreciating the fact that the

Russians were helping to save American lives by their sacrifice on the

battlefield. Soviet officials, in turn, believed that their American

counterparts overseeing the shipments were not necessarily doing all that

they might to imple­ment the promises made by the president. Americans

expected gratitude. Russians expected supplies. Both expectations were

justified, yet the conflict reflected the extent to which underlying distrust

continued to poison the prospect of cooperation. "Frankly," FDR told one

subordi­nate, "if I was a Russian, I would feel that I had been given the

runaround in the United States." Yet with equal justification, Americans

resented Soviet ingratitude. "The Russian authorities seem to want to cover

up the fact that they are receiving outside help," American Ambassador

Standley told a Moscow press conference in March 1943. "Apparently they want

their people to believe that the Red Army is fighting this war alone."

Clearly, the battle against Nazi Germany was not the only conflict taking

place.

Yet the disputes over lend-lease proved minor compared to the issue of a

second front—what one historian has called "the acid test of Anglo-American

intentions." However much help the United States could provide in the way of

war materiel, the decisive form of relief that Stalin sought was the actual

involvement of American and British soldiers in Western Europe. Only such an

invasion could significantly relieve the pressure of massive German divisions

on the eastern front. During the years 1941-44, fewer than 10 percent of

Germany's troops were in the west, while nearly three hundred divisions were

committed to conquering Russia. If the Soviet Union was to survive, and the

Allies to secure victory, it was imperative that American and British troops

force a diversion of German troops to the west and help make possible the

pincer movement from east and west that would eventually annihilate the

fascist foe.

Roosevelt understood this all too well. Indeed, he appears to have wished

nothing more than the most rapid possible development of the second front. In

part, he saw such action as the only means to deflect a Soviet push for

acceptance of Russia's pre-World War II territorial acquisitions,

particularly in the Baltic states and Finland. Such acquisi­tions would not

only be contrary to the Atlantic Charter and America's commitment to self-

determination; they would also undermine the prospect of securing political

support in America for international postwar cooperation. Hence, Roosevelt

hoped to postpone, until victory was achieved, any final decisions on issues

of territory. Shrewdly, the president understood that meeting Soviet demands

for direct military assistance through a second front would offer the most

effective answer to Russia's territorial aspirations.

Roosevelt had read the Soviet attitude correctly. In 1942, Soviet foreign

minister Molotov readily agreed to withdraw his territorial demands in

deference to U.S. concerns because the second front was so much more decisive

an issue. When Molotov asked whether the Allies could undertake a second

front operation that would draw off forty German divisions from the eastern

front, the president replied that it could and that it would. Roosevelt

cabled Churchill that he was "more anxious than ever" for a cross-channel

attack in August 1942 so that Molotov would be able to "carry back some real

results of his mission and give a favorable report to Stalin." At the end of

their 1942 meeting, Roosevelt pledged to Molotov-and through him to Stalin-

that a second front would be established that year. The president then

proceeded to mobilize his own military advisors to develop plans for such an

attack.

But Roosevelt could not deliver. Massive logistical and production problems

obstructed any possibility of invading Western Europe on the timetable

Roosevelt had promised. As a result, despite Roosevelt's own best intentions

and the commitment of his military staff, he could not implement his desire

to proceed. In addition, Roosevelt repeatedly encountered objections from

Churchill and the British military estab­lishment, still traumatized by the

memory of the bloodletting that had occurred in the trench fighting of World

War I. For Churchill, engagement of the Nazis in North Africa and then

through the "soft underbelly" of Europe-Sicily and Italy-offered a better

prospect for success. Hence, after promising Stalin a second front in August

1942, Roosevelt had to withdraw the pledge and ask for delay of the second

front until the spring of 1943. When that date arrived, he was forced to pull

back yet again for political and logistical reasons. By the time D-Day

finally dawned on June 6, 1944, the Western Allies had broken their promise

on the single most critical military issue of the war three times. On each

occasion, there had been ample reason for the delay, but given the continued

heavy burden placed on the Soviet Union, it was perhaps understandable that

some Russian leaders viewed America's delay on the second front question with

suspicion, sarcasm, and anger. When D-Day arrived, Stalin acknowledged the

operation to be one of the greatest military ventures of human history.

Still, the squabbles that preceded D-Day contributed substantially to the

suspicions and tension that already existed between the two nations.

Another broad area of conflict emerged over who would control occupied areas

once the war ended? How would peace be negotiated? The principles of the

Atlantic Charter presumed establishment of democratic, freely elected, and

representative governments in every area won back from the Nazis. If

universalism were to prevail, each country liberated from Germany would have

the opportunity to deter­mine its own political structure through democratic

means that would ensure representation of all factions of the body politic.

If "sphere of influence" policies were implemented, by contrast, the major

powers would dictate such decisions in a manner consistent with their own

self-interest. Ultimately, this issue would become the decisive point of

confrontation during the Cold War, reflecting the different state systems and

political values of the Soviets and Americans; but even in the midst of the

fighting, the Allies found themselves in major disagreement, sowing seeds of

distrust that boded ill for the future. Since no plans were established in

advance on how to deal with these issues, they were handled on a case by case

basis, in each instance reinforcing the suspicions already present between

the Soviet Union and the West.

Notwithstanding the Atlantic Charter, Britain and the United States proceeded

on a de facto basis to implement policies at variance with universalism.

Thus, for example, General Dwight Eisenhower was authorized to reach an

accommodation with Admiral Darlan in North Africa as a means of avoiding an

extended military campaign to defeat the Vichy, pro-fascist collaborators who

controlled that area. From the perspective of military necessity and the

preservation of life, it made sense to compromise one's ideals in such a

situation. Yet the precedent inevitably raised problems with regard to allied

efforts to secure self-determination elsewhere.

The issue arose again during the Allied invasion of Italy. There, too,

concern with expediting military victory and securing political stability

caused Britain and the United States to negotiate with the fascist Badoglio

regime. "We cannot be put into a position," Churchill said, "where our two

armies are doing all the fighting but Russians have a veto." Yet Stalin

bitterly resented being excluded from participation in the Italian

negotiations. The Soviet Union protested vigorously the failure to establish

a tripartite commission to conduct all occupation negotiations. It was time,

Stalin said, to stop viewing Russia as "a passive third observer. ... It is

impossible to tolerate such a situation any longer." In the end, Britain and

the United States offered the token concession of giving the Soviets an

innocuous role on the advisory commission dealing with Italy, but the primary

result of the Italian experience was to reemphasize a crucial political

reality: when push came to shove, those who exercised military control in an

immediate situation would also exercise political control over any occupation

regime.

The shoe was on the other foot when it came to Western desires to have a voice

over Soviet actions in the Balkan states, particularly Romania. By not giving

Russia an opportunity to participate in the Italian surrender, the West-in

effect-helped legitimize Russia's desire to proceed unilaterally in Eastern

Europe. Although both Churchill and Roosevelt were "acutely conscious of the

great importance of the Balkan situation" and wished to "take advantage of" any

opportunity to exercise influence in that area, the simple fact was that Soviet

troops were in control. Churchill-and privately Roosevelt as well-accepted the

con­sequences. "The occupying forces had the power in the area where their arms

were present," Roosevelt noted, "and each knew that the other could not force

things to an issue." But the contradiction between the stated idealistic aims

of the war effort and such realpolitik would come back to haunt the

prospect for postwar collaboration, particularly in the areas of Poland and

other east European countries.

Moments of conflict, of course, took place within the context of day-to-day

cooperation in meeting immediate wartime needs. Some­times, such cooperation

seemed deep and genuine enough to provide a basis for overcoming suspicion and

conflict of interest. At the Moscow foreign ministers conference in the fall of

1943, the Soviets proved responsive to U.S. concerns. Reassured that there

would indeed be a second front in Europe in 1944, the Russians strongly

endorsed a postwar international organization to preserve the peace. More

impor­tant, they indicated they would join the war against Japan as soon as

Germany was defeated, and appeared willing to accept the Chiang Kaishek

government in China as a major participant in world politics. In some ways,

these were a series of quid pro quos. In exchange for the second front,

Russia had made concessions on issues of critical impor­tance to Britain and

the United States. Nevertheless, the results were encouraging. FDR reported

that the conference had created "a psy­chology of ... excellent feeling."

Instead of being "cluttered with suspicion," the discussions had occurred in an

atmosphere that "was amazingly good."

The same spirit continued at the first meeting of Stalin, Churchill, and

Roosevelt in Tehran during November and early December 1943. Committed to

winning Stalin as a friend, FDR stayed at the Soviet Embassy, met privately

with Stalin, aligned himself with the Soviet leader against Churchill on a

number of issues, and even went so far as to taunt Churchill "about his

Britishness, about John Bull," in an effort to forge an informal "anti-

imperial" alliance between the United States and the Soviet Union. A spirit

of cooperation prevailed, with the wartime leaders agreeing that the Big Four

would have the power to police any postwar settlements (clearly consistent

with Stalin's commitment to a "sphere of influence" approach), reaffirming

plans for a joint military effort against Japan, and even—after much

difficulty—appearing to find a common approach to the difficulties of Poland

and Eastern Europe. When it was all over, FDR told the American people: "I

got along fine with Marshall Stalin ... I believe he is truly representative

of the heart and soul of Russia; and I believe that we are going to get along

very well with him and the Russian people—very well indeed." When pressed on

what kind of a person the Soviet leader was, Roosevelt responded:

"I would call him something like me, ... a realist."

The final conference of Stalin, Churchill, and Roosevelt at Yalta in February

1945 appeared at the time to carry forward the partnership, although in

retrospect it would become clear that the facade of unity was built on a

foundation of misperceptions rooted in the different values, priorities, and

political ground rules of the two societies. Stalin seemed to recognize

Roosevelt's need to present postwar plans—for domestic political reasons—as

consistent with democratic, universalistic principles. Roosevelt, in turn,

appreciated Stalin's need for friendly governments on his borders. The three

leaders agreed on concrete plans for Soviet participation in the Japanese

war, and Stalin reiterated his support for a coalition government in China

with Chiang Kaishek assuming a position of leadership. Although some of

Roosevelt's aides were skeptical of the agreements made, most came back

confident that they had succeeded in laying a basis for continued

partnership. As Harry Hopkins later recalled, "we really believed in our

hearts that this was the dawn of the new day we had all been praying for. The

Russians have proved that they can be reasonable and far-seeing 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."

In fact, two disquietingly different perceptions of the Soviet Union existed

as the war drew to an end. Some Washington officials believed that the

mystery of Russia was no mystery at all, simply a reflection of a national

history in which suspicion of outsiders was natural, given repeated invasions

from Western Europe and rampant hostility toward communism on the part of

Western powers. Former Ambassador to Moscow Joseph Davies believed that the

way to cut through that suspicion was to adopt "the simple approach of

assuming that what they say, they mean." On the basis of his personal

negotiations with the Russians, presidential aide Harry Hopkins shared the

same confidence.

The majority of well-informed Americans, however, endorsed the opposite

position. It was folly, one newspaper correspondent wrote, "to prettify Stalin,

whose internal homicide record is even longer than Hitler's." Hitler and Stalin

were two of the same breed, former Ambas­sador to Russia William Bullitt

insisted. Each wanted to spread his power "to the ends of the earth. Stalin,

like Hitler, will not stop. He can only be stopped." According to

Bullitt, any alternative view implied "a conversion of Stalin as striking as

the conversion of Saul on the road to Damascus." Senator Robert Taft agreed. It

made no sense, he insisted, to base U.S. policy toward the Soviet Union "on the

delightful theory that Mr. Stalin in the end will turn out to have an angelic

nature." Drawing on the historical precedents of the purge trials and

traditional American hostility to communism, totalitarianism, and Stalin, those

who held this point of view saw little hope of compromise. "There is as little

difference between communism and fascism," Monsignor Fulton J. Sheen said, "as

there is between burglary and larceny." The only appropriate response was

force. Instead of "leaning over backward to be nice to the descendents of

Genghis Khan," General George Patton suggested, "[we] should dictate to them

and do it now and in no uncertain terms." Within such a frame of reference, the

lessons of history and of ideological incompatibility seemed to permit no

possibility of compromise.

But Roosevelt clearly felt that there was a third way, a path of mutual

accommodation that would sustain and nourish the prospects of postwar

partnership without ignoring the realities of geopolitics. The choice in his

mind was clear. "We shall have to take the responsibility for world

collaboration," he told Congress, "or we shall have to bear the

responsibility for another world conflict." President Roosevelt was neither

politically naive nor stupid. Even though committed to the Atlantic Charter's

ideals of self-determination and territorial integrity, he recognized the

legitimate need of the Soviet Union for national security. For him, the

process of politics—informed by thirty-five years of skilled

practice—involved striking a deal that both sides could live with. Roosevelt

acknowledged the brutality, the callousness, the tyranny of the Soviet

system. Indeed, in 1940 he had called Russia as absolute a dictatorship as

existed anywhere. But that did not mean a solution was impossible, or that

one should withdraw from the struggle to find a basis for world peace. As he

was fond of saying about negotiations with Russia, "it is permitted to walk

with the devil until the bridge is crossed."

The problem was that, as Roosevelt defined the task of finding a path of

accommodation, it rested solely on his shoulders. The president possessed an

almost mystical confidence in his own capacity to break through policy

differences based on economic structures and political systems, and to

develop a personal relationship of trust that would transcend impersonal

forces of division. "I know you will not mind my being brutally frank when I

tell you," he wrote Churchill in 1942, "[that] I think I can personally

handle Stalin better than either your Foreign Office or my State Department.

Stalin hates the guts of all your top people. He thinks he likes me better,

and I hope he will continue to do so." Notwithstanding the seeming naivete of

such statements, Roosevelt appeared right, in at least this one regard. The

Soviets did seem to place their faith in him, perhaps thinking that American

foreign policy was as much a product of one man's decisions as their own.

Roosevelt evidently thought the same way, telling Bullitt, in one of their

early foreign policy discussions, "it's my responsibility and not yours; and

I'm going to play my hunch."

The tragedy, of course, was that the man who perceived that fostering world

peace was his own personal responsibility never lived to carry out his

vision. Long in declining health, suffering from advanced arteriosclerosis

and a serious cardiac problem, he had gone to Warm Springs, Georgia, to

recover from the ordeal of Yalta and the congres­sional session. On April 12,

Roosevelt suffered a massive cerebral hemorrhage and died. As word spread

across the country, the stricken look on people's faces told those who had

not yet heard the news the awful dimensions of what had happened. "He was the

only president I ever knew," one woman said. In London, Churchill declared

that he felt as if he had suffered a physical blow. Stalin greeted the

American ambassador in silence, holding his hand for thirty seconds. The

leader of the world's greatest democracy would not live to see the victory he

had striven so hard to achieve.

2.2 The Truman Doctrine.

Few people were less prepared for the challenge of becoming president.

Although well-read in history, Truman's experience in foreign policy was

minimal. His most famous comment on diplomacy had been a statement to a

reporter in 1941 that "if we see that Germany is winning [the war] we ought

to help Russia, and if Russia is winning we ought to help Germany and that

way let them kill as many as possible, although I don't want to see Hitler

victorious under any circumstances." As vice-president, Truman had been

excluded from all foreign policy discus­sions. He knew nothing about the

Manhattan Project. The new president, Henry Stimson noted, labored under the

"terrific handicap of coming into... an office where the threads of

information were so multitudinous that only long previous familiarity could

allow him to control them." More to the point were Truman's own comments:

"They didn't tell me anything about what was going on. . . . Everybody around

here that should know anything about foreign affairs is out." Faced with

burdens sufficiently awesome to intimidate any individual, Truman had to act

quickly on a succession of national security questions, aided only by his

native intelligence and a no-nonsense attitude reflected in the now-famous

slogan that adorned his desk: "The Buck Stops Here."

Truman's dilemma was compounded by the extent to which Roo­sevelt had acted" as

his own secretary of state, sharing with almost no one his plans for the

postwar period. Roosevelt placed little trust in the State Department's

bureaucracy, disagreed with the suspicion exhibited toward Russia by most

foreign service officers, and for the most part appeared to believe that he

alone held the secret formula for accom­modation with the Soviets. Ultimately

that formula presumed the willingness of the Russian leadership "to give the

Government of Poland [and other Eastern European countries] an external

appearance of inde­pendence [italics added]," in the words of Roosevelt's

aide Admiral William Leahy. In the month before his death, FDR had evidently

begun to question that presumption, becoming increasingly concerned about

Soviet behavior. Had he lived, he may well have adopted a significantly tougher

position toward Stalin than he had taken previously. Yet in his last

communication with Churchill, Roosevelt was still urging the British prime

minister to "minimize the Soviet problem as much as possible . . . because

these problems, in one form or another, seem to arrive everyday and most of

them straighten out." If Stalin's intentions still remained difficult to fathom

so too did Roosevelt's. And now Truman was in charge, with neither Roosevelt's

experience to inform him, nor a clear sense of Roosevelt's perceptions to offer

him direction.

Without being able to analyze at leisure all the complex information that was

relevant, Truman solicited the best advice he could from those who were most

knowledgeable about foreign relations. Hurrying back from Moscow, Averell

Harriman sought the president's ear, lobbying intensively with White House

and State Department officials for his position that "irreconcilable

differences" separated the Soviet Union and the United States, with the

Russians seeking "the extension of the Soviet system with secret police,

[and] extinction of freedom of speech" everywhere they could. Earlier,

Harriman had been well disposed toward the Soviet leadership,

enthusiastically endorsing Russian interest in a postwar loan and advocating

cooperation wherever possible. But now Harriman perceived a hardening of

Soviet attitudes and a more ag­gressive posture toward control over Eastern

Europe. The Russians had just signed a separate peace treaty with the Lublin

(pro-Soviet) Poles, and after offering safe passage to sixteen pro-Western

representatives of the Polish resistance to conduct discussions about a

government of national unity, had suddenly arrested the sixteen and held them

incommunicado. America's previous policy of generosity toward the Soviets had

been "misinterpreted in Moscow," Harriman believed, leading the Russians to

think they had carte blanche to proceed as they wished. In Harriman's view,

the Soviets were engaged in a "barbarian invasion of Europe." Whether or not

Roosevelt would have accepted Harriman's analysis, to Truman the ambassador's

words made eminent sense. The international situation was like a poker game,

Truman told one friend, and he was not going to let Stalin beat him.

Just ten days after taking office, Truman had the opportunity to play his own

hand with Molotov. The Soviet foreign minister had been sent by Stalin to

attend the first U.N. conference in San Francisco both as a gesture to

Roosevelt's memory and as a means of sizing up the new president. In a

private conversation with former Ambassador to Moscow Joseph Davies, Molotov

expressed his concern that "full information" about Russian-U.S. relations

might have died with FDR and that "differences of interpretation and possible

complications [might] arise which would not occur if Roosevelt lived."

Himself worried that Truman might make "snap judgments," Davies urged Molotov

to explain fully Soviet policies vis-a-vis Poland and Eastern Europe in order

to avoid future conflict.

Truman implemented the same no-nonsense approach when it came to decisions

about the atomic bomb. Astonishingly, it was not until the day after Truman's

meeting with Molotov that he was first briefed about the bomb. By that time,

$2 billion had already been spent on what Stimson called "the most terrible

weapon ever known in human history." Immediately, Truman grasped the

significance of the infor­mation. "I can't tell you what this is," he told

his secretary, "but if it works, and pray God it does, it will save many

American lives." Here was a weapon that might not only bring the war to a

swift conclusion, but also provide a critical lever of influence in all

postwar relations. As James Byrnes told the president, the bomb would "put us

in a position to dictate our own terms at the end of the war."

In the years subsequent to Hiroshima and Nagasaki, historians have debated

the wisdom of America's being the first nation to use such a horrible weapon

of destruction and have questioned the motivation leading up to that

decision. Those who defend the action point to ferocious Japanese resistance

at Okinawa and Iwo Jima, and the likelihood of even greater loss of life if

an invasion of Japan became necessary. Support for such a position comes even

from some Japanese. "If the military had its way," one military expert in

Japan has said, "we would have fought until all 80 million Japanese were

dead. Only the atomic bomb saved me. Not me alone, but many Japanese. . . ."

Those morally repulsed by the incineration of human flesh that resulted from

the A-bomb, on the other hand, doubt the necessity of dropping it, citing

later U.S. intelligence surveys which concluded that "Japan would have

surrendered even if the atomic bombs had not been dropped, even if Russia had

not entered the war, and even if no invasion had been planned or

contemplated." Distinguished military leaders such as Dwight Eisenhower later

opposed use of the bomb. "First, the Japanese were ready to surrender, and it

wasn't necessary to hit them with that awful thing," Eisenhower noted.

"Second, I hated to see our country be the first to use such a weapon." In

light of such statements, some have asked why there was no effort to

communicate the horror of the bomb to America's adversaries either through a

demonstration explosion or an ultimatum. Others have questioned whether the

bomb would have been used on non-Asians, although the fire-bombing of Dresden

claimed more victims than Hiroshima. Perhaps most seriously, some have

charged that the bomb was used primarily to intimidate the Soviet Union

rather than to secure victory over Japan.

Although revulsion at America's deployment of atomic weapons is understandable,

it now appears that no one in the inner circles of American military and

political power ever seriously entertained the possibility of not using

the bomb. As Henry Stimson later recalled, "it was our common objective,

throughout the war, to be the first to produce an atomic weapon and use it. ...

At no time, from 1941 to 1945, did I ever hear it suggested by the president,

or by any other responsible member of the government, that atomic energy should

not be used in the war." As historians Martin Sherwin and Barton Bernstein have

shown, the momentum behind the Manhattan Project was such that no one ever

debated the underlying assumption that, once per­fected, nuclear weapons would

be used. General George Marshall told the British, as well as Truman and

Stimson, that a land invasion of Japan would cause casualties ranging from five

hundred thousand to more than a million American troops. Any president who

refused to use atomic weapons in the face of such projections could logically

be accused of needlessly sacrificing American lives. Moreover, the enemy was

the same nation that had unleashed a wanton and brutal attack on Pearl Harbor.

As Truman later explained to a journalist, "When you deal with a beast, you

have to treat him as a beast." Although many of the scientists who had seen the

first explosion of the bomb in New Mexico were in awe of its destructive

potential and hoped to find some way to avoid its use in war, the idea of a

demonstration met with skepticism. Only one or two bombs existed. What if, in a

demonstration, they failed to detonate? Thus, as horrible as it may seem in

retrospect, no one ever seriously doubted the necessity of dropping the bomb on

Japan once the weapon was perfected.

On the Russian issue, however, there now seems little doubt that

administration officials thought long and hard about the bomb's impact on

postwar relations with the Soviet Union. Faced with what seemed to be the

growing intransigence of the Soviet Union toward virtually all postwar

questions, Truman and his advisors concluded that possession of the weapon

would give the United States unprecedented leverage to push Russia toward a

more accommodating position. Senator Edwin Johnson stated the equation

crassly, but clearly. "God Almighty in his infinite wisdom," the Senator

said, "[has] dropped the atomic bomb in our lap ... [now] with vision and

guts and plenty of atomic bombs, . . . [the U.S. can] compel mankind to adopt

a policy of lasting peace ... or be burned to a crisp." Stating the same

argument with more sophistication prior to Hiroshima, Stimson told Truman

that the bomb might well "force a favorable settlement of Eastern European

questions with the Russians." Truman agreed. If the weapon worked, he noted,

"I'll certainly have a hammer on those boys."

Use of the bomb as a diplomatic lever played a pivotal role in Truman's

preparation for his first meeting with Stalin at Potsdam. Not only would the

conference address such critical questions as Eastern Europe, Germany, and

Russia's involvement in the war against Japan;

It would also provide a crucial opportunity for America to drive home with

forcefulness its foreign policy beliefs about future relationships with

Russia. Stimson and other advisors urged the president to hold off on any

confrontation with Stalin until the bomb was ready. "Over any such tangled

wave of problems," Stimson noted, "the bomb's secret will be dominant. ... It

seems a terrible thing to gamble with such big stakes and diplomacy without

having your master card in your hand." Although Truman could not delay the

meeting because of a prior commitment to hold it in July, the president was

well aware of the bomb's significance. Already noted for his brusque and

assertive manner, Truman suddenly took on new confidence in the midst of the

Potsdam negotiations when word arrived that the bomb had successfully been

tested. "He was a changed man," Churchill noted. "He told the Russians just

where they got on and off and generally bossed the whole meeting." Now, the

agenda was changed. Russian involvement in the Japanese war no longer seemed

so important. Moreover, the United States had as a bargaining chip the most

powerful weapon ever unleashed. Three days later, Truman walked up to Stalin

and casually told him that the United States had "perfected a very powerful

explosive, which we're going to use against the Japanese." No mention was

made of sharing information about the bomb, or of future cooperation to avoid

an arms race.

Yet the very nature of the new weapon proved a mixed blessing, making it as

much a source of provocation as of diplomatic leverage. Strategic bombing

surveys throughout the war had shown that mass bombings, far from

demoralizing the enemy, often redoubled his commitment to resist. An American

monopoly on atomic weapons would, in all likelihood, have the same effect on

the Russians, a proud people. As Stalin told an American diplomat later, "the

nuclear weapon is something with which you frighten people [who have] weak

nerves." Yet if the war had proven anything, it was that Russian nerves were

remarkably strong. Rather than intimidate the Soviets, Dean Acheson pointed

out, it was more likely that evidence of Anglo-American cooperation in the

Manhattan Project would seem to them "unanswer­able evidence of ... a

combination against them. ... It is impossible that a government as powerful

and power conscious as the Soviet government could fail to react vigorously

to the situation. It must and will exert every energy to restore the loss of

power which the situation has produced."

In fact, news of the bomb's development simply widened the gulf further

between the superpowers, highlighting the mistrust that existed between them,

with sources of antagonism increasing far faster than efforts at cooperation.

On May 11, two days after Germany surren­dered—and two weeks after the

Truman-Molotov confrontation—America had abruptly terminated all lend-lease

shipments to the Soviet Union that were not directly related to the war

against Japan. Washington even ordered ships in the mid-Atlantic to turn

around. The action had been taken largely in rigid bureaucratic compliance

with a new law governing lend-lease just enacted by Congress, but Truman had

been warned of the need to handle the matter in a way that was sensitive to

Soviet pride. Instead, he signed the termination order without even reading

it. Although eventually some shipments were resumed, the damage had been

done. The action was "brutal," Stalin later told Harry Hopkins, implemented

in a "scornful and abrupt manner." Had the United States consulted Russia

about the issue "frankly" and on "a friendly basis," the Soviet dictator

said, "much could have been done"; but if the action "was designed as

pressure on the Russians in order to soften them up, then it was a

fundamental mistake."

Russian behavior through these months, on the other hand, offered little

encouragement for the belief that friendship and cooperation ranked high on

the Soviet agenda. In addition to violating the spirit of the Yalta accords

by jailing the sixteen members of the Polish under­ground and signing a

separate peace treaty with the Lublin Poles, Stalin seemed more intent on

reviving and validating his reputation as architect of the purges than as one

who wished to collaborate in spreading democracy. He jailed thousands of

Russian POWs returning from German prison camps, as if their very presence on

foreign soil had made them enemies of the Russian state. One veteran was

imprisoned because he had accepted a present from a British comrade in arms,

another for making a critical comment about Stalin in a letter. Even

Molotov's wife was sent to Siberia. In the meantime, hundreds of thousands of

minority nationalities in the Soviet Union were removed forcibly from their

homelands when they protested the attempted obliteration of their ancient

identities. Some Westerners speculated that Stalin was clinically psychotic,

so paranoid about the erosion of his control over the Russian people that he

would do anything to close Soviet borders and prevent the Russian people from

getting a taste of what life in a more open society would be like. Winston

Churchill, for example, wondered whether Stalin might not be more fearful of

Western friendship than of Western hostility, since greater cooperation with

the noncommunist world could well lead to a dismantling of the rigid

totalitarian control he previously had exerted. For those American diplomats

who were veterans of service in Moscow before the war, Soviet actions and

attitudes seemed all too reminiscent of the viselike terror they remembered

from the worst days of the 1930s.

When Truman, Stalin, and Churchill met in Potsdam in July 1945, these

suspicions were temporarily papered over, but no progress was made on untying

the Gordian knots that plagued the wartime alliance. Truman sought to improve

the Allies' postwar settlement with Italy, hoping to align that country more

closely with the West. Stalin agreed on the condition that changes favorable

to the Soviets be approved for Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria, and Finland. When

Truman replied that there had been no free elections in those countries,

Stalin retorted that there had been none in Italy either. On the issue of

general reparations the three powers agreed to treat each occupation zone

separately. As a result, one problem was solved, but in the process the

future division of Germany was almost assured. The tone of the discussions

was clearly not friendly. Truman raised the issue of the infamous Katyn

massacre, where Soviet troops killed thousands of Polish soldiers and

bulldozed them into a common grave. When Truman asked Stalin directly what

had happened to the Polish officers, the Soviet dictator responded: "they

went away." After Churchill insisted that an iron fence had come down around

British representatives in Romania, Stalin dismissed the charges as "all

fairy tales." No major conflicts were resolved, and the key problems of

reparation amounts, four-power control over Germany, the future of Eastern

Europe, and the structure of any permanent peace settlement were simply

referred to the Council of Foreign Ministers. There, not surprisingly, they

festered, while the pace toward confrontation accelerated.

The first six months of 1946 represented a staccato series of Cold War

events, accompanied by increasingly inflammatory rhetoric. In direct

violation of a wartime agreement that all allied forces would leave Iran

within six months of the war's end, Russia continued its military occupation

of the oil-rich region of Azerbaijan. Responding to the Iranian threat, the

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