Диплом: Cold War

United States demanded a U.N. condemnation of the Soviet presence in

Azerbaijan and, when Russian tanks were seen entering the area, prepared for

a direct confrontation. "Now we will give it to them with both barrels,"

James Byrnes declared. Unless the United States stood firm, one State

Department official warned, "Azer­baijan [will] prove to [be] the first shot

fired in the Third World War." Faced with such clear-cut determination, the

Soviets ultimately withdrew from Iran.

Yet the tensions between the two powers continued to mount. In early

February, Stalin issued what Supreme Court Justice William Douglas called the

"Declaration of World War III," insisting that war was inevitable as long as

capitalism survived and calling for massive sacrifice at home. A month later

Winston Churchill—with Truman at his side—responded at Fulton, Missouri,

declaring that "from Stetting in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an

iron curtain has descended across the [European] continent." Claiming that

"God has willed" the United States and Britain to hold a monopoly over atomic

weapons, Churchill called for a "fraternal association of the English

speaking people" against their common foes. Although Truman made no public

statement, privately he had told Byrnes in January: "I'm tired of babying the

Soviets. They [must be] faced with an iron fist and strong language. . . .

Only one language do they understand—how many divisions have you?" Stalin,

meanwhile, charged Britain and the United States with repressing democratic

insurgents in Greece, declaring that it was the western Allies, not the

Soviet Union, that endangered world peace. "When Mr. Churchill calls for a

new war," Molotov told a foreign ministers' meeting in May, "and makes

militant speeches on two conti­nents, he represents the worst of twentieth-

century imperialism."

During the spring and summer, clashes occurred on virtually all the major

issues of the Cold War. After having told the Soviet Union that the State

Department had "lost" its $6 billion loan request made in January 1945, the

United States offered a $1 billion loan in the spring of 1946 as long as the

Soviet Union agreed to join the World Bank and accept the credit procedures

and controls of that body. Not surprisingly, the Russians refused, announcing

instead a new five-year plan that would promote economic self-sufficiency.

Almost paranoid about keep­ing Westerners out of Russia, Stalin had evidently

concluded that participation in a Western-run financial consortium was too

serious a threat to his own total authority. "Control of their border areas,"

the historian Walter LaFeber has noted, "was worth more to the Russians than

a billion, or even ten billion dollars." A year earlier the response might

have been different. But 1946 was a "year of cement," with little if any

willingness to accept flexibility. In Germany, meanwhile, the Russians

rejected a Western proposal for unifying the country and instead determined

to build up their own zone. The United States reciprocated by declaring it

would no longer cooperate with Russia by removing reparations from the west

to the east. The actions guaranteed a permanent split of Germany and

coincided with American plans to rebuild the West German economy.

The culminating breakdown of U.S.-Soviet relations came over the failure to

secure agreement on the international control of atomic energy. After

Potsdam, some American policymakers had urged the president to take a new

approach on sharing such control with the Soviet Union. The atom bomb, Henry

Stimson warned Truman in the fall of 1945, would dominate America's relations

with Russia. "If we fail to approach them now and continue to negotiate with

. . . this weapon rather ostentatiously on our hip, their suspicions and

their distrust of our purposes and motives will increase." Echoing the same

them, Dr. Harold Urey, a leading atomic scientist, told the Senate that by

making and storing atomic weapons, "we are guilty of beginning the arms

race." Furthermore, there was an inherent problem with the "gun on our hip"

approach. As the scientist Vannevar Bush noted, "there is no powder in the

gun, [nor] could [it] be drawn," unless the United States were willing to

deploy the A-bomb to settle diplomatic disputes. Recognizing this, Truman set

Dean Acheson and David Lilienthal to work in the winter of 1945—46 to prepare

a plan for international control.

But by the time the American proposal had been completed, much of the damage

in Soviet-American relations seemed irreparable. Al­though the Truman plan

envisioned ultimate sharing of international control, it left the United

States with an atomic monopoly—and in a dominant position—until the very last

stage. The Soviets would have no veto power over inspections or sanctions,

and even at the end of the process, the United States would control the

majority of votes within the body responsible for developing peaceful uses of

atomic energy inside the Soviet Union. When the Russians asked to negotiate

about the specifics of the plan, they were told they must either accept the

entire package or nothing at all. In the context of Soviet-American relations

in 1946, the result was predictable—the genie of the atomic arms race would

remain outside the bottle.

Not all influential Americans were "pleased by the growing polari­zation.

Averell Harriman, who a year earlier had been in the forefront of those

demanding a hard-line position from Truman, now pulled back somewhat. "We

must recognize that we occupy the same planet as the Russians," he said, "and

whether we like it or not, disagreeable as they may be, we have to find some

method of getting along." The columnist Walter Lippmann, deeply concerned

about the direction of events, wondered whether the inexperience and personal

predilections of some of America's negotiators might not be part of the

problem. Nor were all the signs negative. After his initial confrontation

with Molotov, Truman appeared to have second thoughts, sending Harry Hopkins

to Moscow to attempt to find some common ground with Stalin on Poland and

Eastern Europe. The Russians, in turn, had not been totally aggressive. They

withdrew from Hungary after free elections in that country had led to the

establishment of a noncommunist regime. Czechoslovakia was also governed by a

coalition government with a Western-style parliament. The British, at least,

announced themselves satisfied with the election process in Bulgaria. Even in

Romania, some concessions were made to include elements more favorably

disposed to the West. The Russians finally backed down in Iran—under

considerable pressure—and would do so again in a dispute over the Turkish

straits in the late summer of 1946.

Still, the events of 1946 had the cumulative effect of creating an aura of

inevitability about bipolar confrontation in the world. The preponderance of

energy in each country seemed committed to the side of suspicion and hostility

rather than mutual accommodation. If Stalin's February prediction of inevitable

war between capitalism and commu­nism embodied in its purest form Russia's

jaundiced perception of relations between the two countries, an

eight-thousand-word telegram from George Kennan to the State Department

articulated the dominant frame of reference within which Soviet actions would

be perceived by U.S. officials. Perhaps the preeminent expert on the

Soviets, and a veteran of service in Moscow in the thirties as well as the

forties, Kennan had been asked to prepare an analysis of Stalin's speech.

Responding in words intended to command attention to Washington, Kennan

declared that the United States was confronted with a "political force

committed fanatically to the belief that [with the] United States 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."

According' to Kennan, the Russians truly believed the world to be divided

permanently into capitalist and socialist camps, with the Soviet Union

dedicated to "ever new heights of military power" even as it sought to subvert

its enemies through an "underground operating directorate of world communism."

The analysis was fright­ening, confirming the fears of those most disturbed by

the Soviet system's denial of human rights and hardline posture toward Western

demands for free elections and open borders in occupied Europe.

Almost immediately, the Kennan telegram became required reading for the

entire diplomatic and military establishment in Washington.

2.3 The Marshall Plan.

The chief virtue of the plan Marshall and his aides were Grafting was its

fusion of these political and economic concerns. As Truman told a Baylor

University audience in March 1947, "peace, freedom, and world trade are

indivisible. . . . We must not go through the '3os again." Since free

enterprise was seen as the foundation for democracy and prosperity, helping

European economies would both assure friendly governments abroad and

additional jobs at home. To accomplish that ^ goal, however, the United

States would need to give economic aid directly rather than through the

United Nations, since only under those circumstances would American control

be assured. Ideally, the Marshall Plan would provide an economic arm to the

political strategy embodied —in the Truman Doctrine. Moreover, if presented

as a program in which even Eastern European countries could participate, it

would provide, at last potentially, a means of including pro-Soviet countries

and breaking Stalin's political and economic domination over Eastern Eu­rope.

On that basis, Marshall dramatically announced his proposal at Harvard

University's commencement on June 5, 1947. "Our policy is directed not

against any country or doctrine," Marshall said, "but against hunger,

poverty, desperation, and chaos. Its purpose should be revival of a working

economy. Any government that is willing to assist in the task of recovery

will find full cooperation ... on the part of the United States government."

Responding, French Foreign Minister George Bidault invited officials

throughout Europe, including the Soviet Union, to attend a conference in

Paris to draw up a plan of action. Poland and Czechoslovakia expressed

interest, and Molotov himself came to Paris with eighty-nine aides.

Rather than inaugurate a new era of cooperation, however, the next few days

simply reaffirmed how far polarization had already extended. Molotov urged

that each country present its own needs independently to the United States.

Western European countries, on the other hand, insisted that all the

countries cooperate in a joint proposal for American consideration. Since the

entire concept presumed extensive sharing of economic data on each country's

resources and liabilities, as well as Western control over how the aid would

be expended, the Soviets angrily walked out of the deliberations. In fact,

the United States never believed that the Russians would participate in the

project, knowing that it was a violation of every Soviet precept to open

their economic records to examination and control by capitalist outsiders.

Furthermore, U.S. strategy was premised on a major rebuilding of German

industry—something profoundly threatening to the Russians. Ideally, Americans

viewed a thriving Germany as the foundation for revitalizing the economies of

all Western European countries, and providing the key to prosperity on both

sides of the Atlantic. To a remarkable extent, that was precisely the result

of the Marshall Plan. Understandably, such a prospect frightened the Soviets,

but the con­sequence was to further the split between East and West, and in

particular, to undercut the possibility of promoting further cooperation with

countries like Hungary and Czechoslovakia.

In the weeks and months after the Russians left Paris, the final pieces of

the Cold War were set in place. Shortly after the Soviet departure from Paris

the Russians announced the creation of a series of bilateral trade agreements

called the "Molotov Plan," designed to link Eastern bloc countries and

provide a Soviet answer to the Marshall Plan. Within the same week the

Russians created a new Communist Information Bureau (Cominform), including

representatives from the major Western European communist parties, to serve

as a vehicle for imposing Stalinist control on anyone who might consider

deviating from the party line. Speaking at the Cominform meeting in August,

Andre Zhdanov issued the Soviet Union's rebuttal to the Truman Doctrine. The

United States, he charged, was organizing the countries of the Near East,

Western Europe, and South America into an alliance com­mitted to the

destruction of communism. Now, he said, the "new democracies" of Eastern

Europe—plus their allies in developing coun­tries—must form a counter bloc.

The world would thus be made up of "two camps," each ideologically,

politically, and, to a growing extent, militarily defined by its opposition

to the other.

To assure that no one misunderstood, Russia moved quickly to impose a steel-

like grip on Eastern Europe. In August 1947 the Soviets purged all left-wing,

anticommunist leaders from Hungary and then rigged elections to assure a pro-

Soviet regime there. Six months later, in February 1948, Stalin moved on

Czechoslovakia as well, insisting on the abolition of independent parties and

sending Soviet troops to the Czech border to back up Soviet demands for an

all new communist government. After Foreign Minister Jan Masaryk either

jumped or was pushed from a window in Prague, the last vestige of resistance

faded. "We are [now] faced with exactly the same situation . . . Britain and

France faced in 1938-39 with Hitler," Truman wrote. The Czech coup coincided

with overwhelming approval of the Marshall Plan by the American Congress. Two

weeks later, on March 5, General Lucius Clay sent his telegram from Germany

warning of imminent war with Russia. Shortly thereafter, Truman called on

Congress to implement Universal Military Training for all Americans. (The

plan was never put in place.) By the end of the month Russia had instituted a

year-long blockade of all supplies to Berlin in protest against the West's

decision to unify her occupation zones in Germany and institute currency

reform. Before the end of spring, the Brussels Pact had brought together the

major powers of Western Europe in a mutual defense pact that a year later

would provide the basis for NATO. If the Truman Doctrine, in Bernard Baruch's

words, had been "a declaration of ideological or religious war," the Marshall

Plan, the Molotov Plan, and subsequent developments in Eastern Europe

represented the economic, political, and military de­marcations that would

define the terrain on which the war would be fought. The Cold War had begun.

Chapter 3: The Role of Cold War in American History and Diplomacy.

3.1 Declaration of the Cold War.

In late February 1947, a British official journeyed to the State Depart­ment

to inform Dean Acheson that the crushing burden of Britain's economic crisis

prevented her from any longer accepting responsibility for the economic and

military stability of Greece and Turkey. The message, Secretary of State

George Marshall noted, "was tantamount to British abdication from the Middle

East, with obvious implications as to their successor." Conceivably, America

could have responded quietly, continuing the steady stream of financial

support already going into the area. Despite aid to the insurgents from

Yugoslavia and Bulgaria, the war going on in Greece was primarily a civil

struggle, with the British side viewed by many as reactionary in its

politics. But instead, Truman administration officials seized the moment as

the occasion for a dramatic new commitment to fight communism. In their view,

Greece and Turkey could well hold the key to the future of Europe itself.

Hence they decided to ask Congress for $400 million in military and economic

aid. In the process, the administration publicly defined postwar diplomacy,

for the first time, as a universal conflict between the forces of good and

the forces of evil.

Truman portrayed the issue as he did, at least in part, because his aides had

failed to convince Congressmen about the merits of the case on grounds of

self-interest alone. Americans were concerned about the Middle East for many

reasons—preservation of political stability, guar­antee of access to mineral

resources, a need to assure a prosperous market for American goods. Early

drafts of speeches on the issue had focused specifically on economic

questions. America could not afford, one advisor noted, to allow Greece and

similar areas to "spiral downward into economic anarchy." But such arguments,

another advisor noted, "made the whole thing sound like an investment

prospectus." Indeed, when Secretary of State Marshall used such arguments of

self-interest with Congressmen, his words fell on deaf ears, particularly

given the commitment of Republicans to cut government spending to the bone.

It was at that moment. Dean Acheson recalled, that "in desperation I

whispered to [Marshall] a request to speak. This was my crisis. For a week I

had nurtured it."

When Acheson took the floor, he transformed the atmosphere in the room. The

issue, he declared, was the effort by Russian communism to seize dominance over

three continents, and encircle and capture Western Europe. "Like apples in a

barrel infected by the corruption of one rotten one, the corruption of Greece

would infect Iran and alter the Middle East . . . Africa . . . Italy and

France." The struggle was ultimate, Acheson concluded. "Not since Rome and

Carthage has there been such a polarization of power on this earth. . . . We

and we alone are in a position to break up" the Soviet quest for world

domination. Suddenly, the Congressmen sat up and took notice. That

argument, Senator Arthur Vandenberg told the president, would be successful. If

Truman wanted his program of aid to be approved, he would—like Acheson—have to

"scare hell" out of the American people.

By the time Truman came before Congress on March 12, the issue was no longer

whether the United States should extend economic aid to Greece and Turkey on

a basis of self-interest, but rather whether America was willing to sanction

the spread of tyrannical communism everywhere in the world. Facing the same

dilemma Roosevelt had confronted during the 1930S in his effort to get

Americans ready for war, Truman sensed that only if the issues were posed as

directly related to the nation's fundamental moral concern—not just self-

interest— would there be a possibility of winning political support. Hence,

as Truman defined the question, the world had to choose "between alternative

ways of life." One option was "free," based on "representative government,

free elections, guarantees of individual liberty, and free­dom of speech and

religion." The other option was "tyranny," based on "terror and oppression, a

controlled press and radio, . . . and a suppression of personal freedoms."

Given a choice between freedom and totalitarianism, Truman concluded, "it

must be the policy of the United States to support free peoples who are

resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities."

Drawing on the "worst case" scenario implicit in Kennan's telegram, Truman,

in effect, had presented the issue of American-Soviet relations as one of

pure ideological and moral conflict. There were some who criticized him.

Senator Robert Taft, for example, wondered whether, if the United States took

responsibility for Greece and Turkey, Americans could object to the Russians

continuing their domination over Eastern Europe. Secretary of State Marshall

was disturbed at "the extent to which the anticommunist element of the speech

was stressed." And George Kennan, concerned over how his views had been used,

protested against the president's strident tone. But Truman and Acheson had

understood the importance of defining the issue on grounds of patri­otism and

moral principle. If the heart of the question was the universal struggle of

freedom against tryanny—not taking sides in a civil war— who could object to

what the government proposed? It was, Senator Arthur Vandenberg noted,

"almost like a presidential request for a declaration of war. . . . There is

precious little we can do except say yes." By mid-May, Truman's aid package

had passed Congress over­whelmingly.

On the same day the Truman Doctrine received final approval, George Marshall

and his aides at the State Department were busy shaping what Truman would

call the second half of the same walnut— the Marshall Plan of massive

economic support to rebuild Western Europe. Britain, France, Germany, Italy,

Belgium—all were devastated by the war, their cities lying in rubble, their

industrial base gutted. It was difficult to know if they could survive, yet

the lessons of World War I suggested that political democracy and stability

depended on the presence of a healthy and thriving economic order. Already

American officials were concerned that Italy—and perhaps France—would

suc­cumb to the political appeal of native communists and become victims of

what William Bullitt had called the "red amoeba" spreading all across Europe.

Furthermore, America's selfish economic interests demanded strong trading

partners in Western Europe. "No nation in modern times," Assistant Secretary

of State Will Clayton had said, "can long expect to enjoy a rising standard

of living without increased foreign trade." America imported from Europe only

half of what it exported, and Western Europe was quickly running out of

dollars to pay for American goods. If some form of massive support to

reconstruct Europe's economy were not developed, economic decay there would

spread, unemployment in America would increase, and political insta­bility

could well lead to communist takeovers of hitherto "friendly" counties.

3.2 Cold War Issues.

Although historians have debated for years the cause of the Cold War,

virtually everyone agrees that it developed around five major issues:

Poland, the structure of governments in other Eastern European countries, the

future of Germany, economic reconstruction of Europe, and international

policies toward the atomic bomb and atomic energy. All of these intersected,

so that within a few months, it became almost impossible to separate one from

the other as they interacted to shape the emergence of a bipolar world. Each

issue in its own way also reflected the underlying confusion and conflict

surrounding the competing doctrines of "universalist" versus "sphere-of-

influence" diplomacy. Ex­amination of these fundamental questions is

essential if we are to comprehend how and why the tragedy of the Cold War

evolved during the three years after Germany's defeat.

Poland constituted the most intractable and profound dilemma facing Soviet-U.S.

relations. As Secretary of State Edward Stettinius observed in 1945, Poland was

"the big apple in the barrel." Unfortunately, it also symbolized, for both

sides, everything that the war had been fought for. From a Soviet perspective,

Poland represented the quin­tessence of Russia's national security needs. On

three occasions, Poland had served as the avenue for devastating invasions of

Russian territory. It was imperative, given Russian history, that Poland be

governed by a regime supportive of the Soviet Union. But Poland also

represented, both in fact and in symbol, everything for which the Western

Allies had fought. Britain and France had declared war on Germany in September

1939 when Hitler invaded Poland, thus honoring their mutual defense pact with

that victimized country. It seemed unthinkable that one could wage war for six

years and end up with another totalitarian country in control of Poland. Surely

if the Atlantic Charter signified anything, it required defending the right of

the Polish people to determine their own destiny. The presence of 7 million

Polish-American voters offered a constant, if unnecessary, reminder that such

issues of self-determi­nation could not be dismissed lightly. Thus, the first

issue confronting the Allies in building a postwar world would also be one on

which compromise was virtually impossible, at least without incredible

diplo­matic delicacy, political subtlety, and profound appreciation, by each

ally, of the other's needs and priorities.

Roosevelt appears to have understood the tortuous path he would have to

travel in order to find a peaceful resolution of the conflict. Given his own

commitment to the Atlantic Charter, rooted in both domestic political reasons

and personal conviction, he recognized the need to advocate an independent

and democratic government for the Polish people. "Poland must be

reconstituted a great nation," he told the country during the 1944 election.

Yet the president also repeatedly acknowledged that the Russians must have a

"friendly" government in Warsaw. Somehow, Roosevelt hoped to find a way to

subordinate these two conflicting positions to the higher priority of postwar

peace. "The President," Harry Hopkins said in 1943, "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 important thing [was] to set it up in a way

that [would] help maintain the peace of the world."

The issue was first joined at the Tehran conference. There, Church­ill and

Roosevelt endorsed Stalin's position that Poland's eastern border, for

security reasons, should be moved to the west. As Roosevelt had earlier

explained to the ambassador from the Polish government-in-exile in London, it

was folly to expect the United States and Britain "to declare war on Joe

Stalin over a boundary dispute." On the other hand, Roosevelt urged Stalin to

be flexible, citing his own need for the Polish vote in the 1944 presidential

election and the importance of establishing cooperation between the London

Poles and the Lublin government-in-exile situated in Moscow. Roosevelt had

been willing to make a major concession to Russia's security needs by

accepting the Soviet definition of Poland's new boundaries. But he also

expected some consideration of his own political dilemma and of the

principles of the Atlantic Charter.

Such consideration appeared to be forthcoming in the summer of 1944 when

Stalin agreed to meet the prime minister of the London-Polish government and

"to mediate" between the two opposing governments-in-exile. But hopes for

such a compromise were quickly crushed as Soviet troops failed to aid the

Warsaw Polish resistance when it rose in massive rebellion against German

occupation forces in hopes of linking up with advancing Soviet forces. The

Warsaw Poles generally supported the London government-in-exile. As Red Army

troops moved to just six miles outside of Warsaw, the Warsaw Poles rose en

masse against their Nazi oppressors. Yet when they did so, the Soviets

callously rejected all pleas for help. For eight weeks they even refused to

permit American planes to land on Soviet soil after airlifting supplies to

the beleaguered Warsaw rebels. By the time the rebellion ended, 250,000

people had become casualties, with the backbone of the pro-London resistance

movement brutally crushed. Although some Americans, then and later, accepted

Soviet claims that logistical problems had prevented any assistance being

offered, most Americans endorsed the more cynical conclusion that Stalin had

found a convenient way to annihilate a large part of his Polish opposition

and facilitate acquisition of a pro-Soviet regime. As Ambassador Averell

Harriman cabled at the time, Russian actions were based on "ruthless

political considerations."

By the time of the Yalta conference, the Red Army occupied Poland, leaving

Roosevelt little room to maneuver. When one American diplomat urged the

president to force Russia to agree to Polish independence, Roosevelt

responded: "Do you want me to go to war with Russia?" With Stalin having

already granted diplomatic recognition to the Lublin regime, Roosevelt could

only hope that the Soviets would accept enough modification of the status quo

to provide the appearance of representative democracy. Spheres of influence

were a reality, FDR told seven senators, because "the occupying forces [have]

the power in the areas where their arms are present." All America could do

was to use her influence "to ameliorate the situation."

Nevertheless, Roosevelt played what cards he had with skill. "Most Poles," he

told Stalin, "want to save face. ... It would make it easier for me at home

if the Soviet government could give something to Poland." A government of

national unity, Roosevelt declared, would facilitate public acceptance in the

United States of full American participation in postwar arrangements. "Our

people at home look with a critical eye on what they consider a disagreement

between us. ... They, in effect, say that if we cannot get a meeting of minds

now . . . how can we get an understanding on even more vital things in the

future?" Although Stalin's immediate response was to declare that Poland was

"not only a question of honor for Russia, but one of life and death," he

finally agreed that some reorganization of the Lublin regime could take place

to ensure broader representation of all Poles.

In the end, the Big Three papered over their differences at Yalta by agreeing

to a Declaration on Liberated Europe that committed the Allies to help

liberated peoples resolve their problems through democratic means and

advocated the holding of free elections. Although Roosevelt's aide Admiral

William Leahy told him that the report on Poland was "so elastic that the

Russians can stretch it all the way from Yalta to Washington without ever

technically breaking it," Roosevelt believed that he had done the best he

could under the circumstances. From the beginning, Roosevelt had recognized,

on a de facto basis at least, that Poland was part of Russia's sphere of

influence and must remain so. He could only hope that Stalin would now show

equal recognition of the U.S. need to have concessions that would give the

appearance, at least, of implementing the Atlantic Charter.

The same basic dilemmas, of course, occurred with regard to the structure of

postwar governments in all of Eastern Europe. As early as 1943, Roosevelt had

made clear to Stalin at Tehran that he was willing to have the Baltic states

controlled by the Soviets. His only request, the president told Stalin, was

for some public commitment to future elections in order to satisfy his

constituents at home for whom "the big issues . . . would be the question of

referendum and the right of self-determination." The exchange with Stalin

accurately reflected Roose­velt's position over time.

Significantly, Roosevelt even sanctioned Churchill's efforts to divide Europe

into spheres of influence. With Roosevelt's approval, Churchill journeyed to

Moscow in the fall of 1944. Sitting across the table from Stalin, Churchill

proposed that Russia exercise 90 percent predominance in Romania, 75 percent

in Bulgaria, and 50 percent control, together with Britain, in Yugoslavia and

Hungary, while the United States and Great Britain would exercise 90 percent

predominance in Greece. After extended discussion and some hard bargaining,

the deal was made. (Poland was not even included in Churchill's percentages,

suggesting that he was acknowledging Soviet control there.) At the time,

Churchill suggested that the arrangements be expressed "in diplomatic terms

[without use of] the phrase 'dividing into spheres,' because the Amer­icans

might be shocked." But in fact, as Robert Daliek has shown in his superb

study of Roosevelt's diplomacy, the American president accepted the

arrangement. "I am most pleased to know," FDR wrote Churchill, "you are

reaching a meeting of your two minds as to international policies." To

Harriman he cabled: "My active interest at the present time in the Balkan

area is that such steps as are practicable should be taken to insure against

the Balkans getting us into a future international war." At no time did

Roosevelt protest the British-Soviet agreement.

In the case of Eastern Europe generally, even more so than in Poland, it

seemed clear that Roosevelt, on a de facto basis, was prepared to live with

spheres-of-influence diplomacy. Nevertheless, he remained constantly

sensitive to the political peril he faced at home on the issue. As

Congressman John Dingell stated in a public warning in August 1943, "We

Americans are not sacrificing, fighting, and dying to make permanent and more

powerful the communistic government of Russia and to make Joseph Stalin a

dictator over the liberated countries of Europe." Such sentiments were

widespread. Indeed, it was concern over such opinions that led Roosevelt to

urge the Russians to be sensitive to American political concerns. In Eastern

Europe for the most part, as in Poland, the key question was whether the

United States could somehow find a way to acknowledge spheres of influence,

but within a context of universalist principles, so that the American people

would not feel that the Atlantic Charter had been betrayed.

The future of Germany represented a third critical point of conflict. For

emotional as well as political reasons, it was imperative that steps be taken

to prevent Germany from ever again waging war. In FDR's words, "We have got

to be tough with Germany, and I mean the German people not just the Nazis. 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 reproducing people who want to

continue the way they have in the past." Consistent with that position,

Roosevelt had agreed with Stalin at Tehran on the need for destroying a

strong Germany by dividing the country into several sectors, "as small and

weak as possible."

Still operating on that premise, Roosevelt endorsed Secretary of the Treasury

Henry Morgenthau's plan to eliminate all industry from Germany and convert

the country into a pastoral landscape of small farms. Not only would such a

plan destroy any future war-making power, it would also reassure the Soviet

Union of its own security. "Russia feared we and the British were going to

try to make a soft peace with Germany and build her up as a possible future

counter-weight against Russia," Morgenthau said. His plan would avoid that,

and simultaneously implement Roosevelt's insistence that "every person in

Germany should realize that this time Germany is a defeated nation." Hence,

in September 1944, Churchill and Roosevelt approved the broad outlines of the

Morgenthau plan as their policy for Germany.

Within weeks, however, the harsh policy of pastoralization came unglued. From

a Soviet perspective, there was the problem of how Russia could exact the

reparations she needed from a country with no industrial base. American

policymakers, in turn, objected that a Germany without industrial capacity

would prove unable to support herself, placing the entire burden for

maintaining the populace on the Allies. Rumors spread that the Morgenthau

plan was stiffening German resis­tance on the western front. American

business interests, moreover, suggested the importance of retaining German

industry as a key to postwar commerce and trade.

As a result, Allied policy toward Germany became a shambles. "No one wants to

make Germany a wholly agricultural nation again," Roosevelt insisted. "No one

wants 'complete eradication of German industrial production capacity in the

Ruhr and the Saar.' " Confused about how to proceed, Roosevelt—in

effect—adopted a policy of no policy. "I dislike making detailed plans for a

country which we do not yet occupy," he said. When Churchill, Stalin, and

Roosevelt met for the last time in Yalta, this failure to plan prevented a

decisive course of action. The Russians insisted on German reparations of $20

billion, half of which would go to the Soviet Union. Although FDR accepted

Stalin's figure as a basis for discussion, the British and Americans deferred

any settlement of the issue, fearing that they would be left with the sole

responsibility for feeding and housing the German people. The only agreement

that could be reached was to refer the issue to a new tripartite commission.

Thus, at just the moment when consensus on a policy to deal with their common

enemy was most urgent, the Allies found themselves empty handed, allowing

conflict and misunderstanding over another central question to join the

already existing problems over Eastern Europe.

Directly related to each of these issues, particularly the German question,

was the problem of postwar economic reconstruction. The issue seemed

particularly important to those Americans concerned about the postwar economy

in the United States. Almost every business and political leader feared

resumption of mass unemployment once the war ended. Only the development of

new markets, extensive trade, and worldwide economic cooperation could

prevent such an eventuality. "The capitalistic system is essentially an

international system," one official declared. "If it cannot function

internationally, it will break down completely." The Atlantic Charter had

taken such a viewpoint into account when it declared that all states should

enjoy access, on equal terms, to "the raw materials of the world which are

needed for their economic prosperity."

To promote these objectives, the United States took the initiative at Bretton

Woods, New Hampshire, in 1944 by creating a World Bank with a capitalization

of $7.6 billion and the International Monetary Fund with a capitalization of

$7.3 billion. The two organizations would provide funds for rebuilding

Europe, as well as for stabilizing world currency. Since the United States

was the major contributor, it would exercise decisive control over how the

money was spent. The premise underlying both organizations was that a stable

world required healthy economies based on free trade.

Attitudes toward economic reconstruction had direct import for postwar

policies toward Germany and Eastern Europe. It would be difficult to have a

stable European economy without a significant industrial base in Germany.

Pastoral countries of small farms rarely possessed the wherewithal to become

customers of large capitalist enterprises. On the other hand, a prosperous

German economy, coupled with access to markets in Eastern and Western Europe,

offered the prospect of avoiding a recurrence of depression and guaranteed a

significant American presence in European politics as well. Beyond this, of

course, it was thought that if democracy was to survive, as it had not after

1918, countries needed a thriving economy.

Significantly, economic aid also offered the opportunity either to enhance or

diminish America's ties to the Soviet Union. Averell Harriman, the American

ambassador to Moscow after October 1943, had engaged in extensive business

dealings with the Soviet Union during the 1920S and believed firmly in the

policy of providing American assistance to rebuild the Soviet economy. Such

aid, Harriman argued, "would be in the self-interest of the United States"

because it would help keep Americans at work producing goods needed by the

Russians. Just as important, it would provide "one of the most effective

weapons to avoid the development of a sphere of influence of the Soviet Union

over eastern Europe and the Balkans."

Proceeding on these assumptions, Harriman urged the Russians to apply for

American aid. They did so, initially, in December 1943 with a request for a

$1 billion loan at an interest rate of one-half of 1 percent, then again in

January 1945 with a request for a $6 billion loan at an interest rate of 2.25

percent. Throughout this period, American officials appeared to encourage the

Soviet initiative. Secretary of the Treasury Morgenthau had come up with his

own plan for a $10 billion loan at 2 percent interest. When Chamber of

Commerce head Eric Johnson visited Moscow, Stalin told him: "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." So enthusiastic were some State Department officials about

postwar economic arrangements that they predicted exports of as much as $1

billion a year to Russia. Molotov and Mikoyan encouraged such optimism, with

the Soviets promising "a voluminous and stable market such as no other

customer would ever [offer]."

As the European war drew to a close, however, the American attitude shifted

from one of eager encouragement to skeptical detach­ment. Harriman and his

aides in Moscow perceived a toughening of the Soviet position on numerous

issues, including Poland and Eastern Europe. Hence, they urged the United

States to clamp down on lend-lease and exact specific concessions from the

Russians in return for any ongoing aid. Only if the Soviets "played the

international game with us in accordance with our standards," Harriman

declared, should the United States offer assistance. By April 1945, Harriman

had moved to an even more hard-line position. "We must clearly recognize," he

said, "that the Soviet program is the establishment of totalitarianism,

ending personal liberty and democracy." A week later he urged the State

Department to view the Soviet loan request with great suspicion. "Our basic

interest," he cabled, "might better be served by increasing our trade with

other parts of the world rather than giving preference to the Soviet Union as

a source of supply."

Congress and the American people, meanwhile, seemed to be turning against

postwar economic aid. A public opinion poll in December 1944 showed that 70

percent of the American people believed the Allies should repay their lend-

lease debt in full. Taking up the cry for fiscal restraint, Senator Arthur

Vandenberg told a friend: "We have a rich country, but it is not rich enough

to permit us to support the world." Fearful about postwar recession and the

possibility that American funds would be used for purposes it did not

approve, Congress placed severe constraints on continuation of any lend-lease

support once the war was over and indicated that any request for a postwar

loan would encounter profound skepticism.

Roosevelt's response, in the face of such attitudes, was once again to

procrastinate. Throughout the entire war he had ardently espoused a generous

and flexible lend-lease policy toward the Soviet Union. For the most part, FDR

appeared to endorse Secretary Morgenthau's attitude that "to get the Russians

to do something [we] should ... do it nice. . . . Don't drive such a hard

bargain that when you come through it does not taste good." Consistent with

that attitude, he had rejected Harriman's advice to demand quid pro

quos for American lend-lease. Economic aid, he declared, did not "constitute a

bargaining weapon of any strength," particularly since curtailing lend-lease

would harm the United States as much as it would injure the Russians.

Nevertheless, Roosevelt accepted a policy of postponement on any discussion of

postwar economic arrangements. "I think it's very important," the president

declared, "that we hold back and don't give [Stalin] any promise until we get

what we want." Clearly, the amount of American aid to the Soviet Union—and the

attitude which accompanied that aid— could be decisive to the future of

American-Soviet relations. Yet in this—as in so many other issues—Roosevelt

gave little hint of the ultimate direction he would take, creating one more

dimension of uncertainty amidst the gathering confusion that surrounded postwar

international arrangements.

The final issue around which the Cold War revolved was that of the atomic

bomb. Development of nuclear weapons not only placed in human hands the power

to destroy all civilization, but presented as well the critical question of

how such weapons would be used, who would control them, and what

possibilities existed for harnessing the incalcu­lable energy of the atom for

the purpose of international peace and cooperation rather than destruction.

No issue, ultimately, would be more important for human survival. On the

other hand, the very nature of having to build the A-bomb in a world

threatened by Hitler's madness mandated a secrecy that seriously impeded,

from the beginning, the prospects for cooperation and international control.

The divisive potential of the bomb became evident as soon as Albert Einstein

disclosed to Roosevelt the frightening information that physi­cists had the

capacity to split the atom. Knowing that German scientists were also pursuing

the same quest, Roosevelt immediately ordered a crash program of research and

development on the bomb, soon dubbed the "Manhattan Project." British

scientists embarked on a similar effort, collaborating with their American

colleagues. The bomb, one British official noted, "would be a terrific factor

in the postwar world . . . giving an absolute control to whatever country

possessed the secret." Although American advisors urged "restricted

interchange" of atomic energy information, Churchill demanded and got full

cooperation. If the British and the Americans worked together, however, what

of the Soviet Union once it became an ally?

In a decision fraught with significance for the future, Roosevelt and

Churchill agreed in Quebec in August 1943 to a "full exchange of information"

about the bomb with "[neither] of us [to] communicate any information about

[the bomb] to third parties except by mutual consent." The decision ensured

Britain's future interests as a world power and guaranteed maximum secrecy;

but it did so in a manner that would almost inevitably provoke Russian

suspicion about the intentions of her two major allies.

The implications of the decision were challenged just one month later when

Neils Bohr, a nuclear physicist who had escaped from Nazi-occupied Denmark,

approached Roosevelt (indirectly through Felix Frankfurter) with the proposal

that the British and Americans include Russia in their plans. Adopting a

typically Rooseveltian stance, the president both encouraged Bohr to believe

that he was "most eager to explore" the possibility of cooperation and almost

simultaneously reaf­firmed his commitment to an exclusive British-American

monopoly over atomic information. Meeting personally with Bohr on August 26,

1944, Roosevelt agreed that "contact with the Soviet Union should be tried

along the lines that [you have] suggested." Yet in the meantime, Roosevelt

and Churchill had signed a new agreement to control available supplies of

uranium and had authorized surveillance of Bohr "to insure that he is

responsible for no leakage of information, particularly to the Russians."

Evidently, Roosevelt hoped to keep open the possibility of cooperating with

the Soviets—assuming that Bohr would somehow communicate this to the

Russians—while retaining, until the moment was right, an exclusive

relationship with Britain. Implicit in Roosevelt's posture was the notion

that sharing atomic information might be a quid pro quo for future Soviet

concessions. On the surface, such an argument made sense. Yet it presumed

that the two sides were operating on the same set of assumptions and

perceptions—clearly not a very safe presumption. In this, as in so many other

matters, Roosevelt appears to have wanted to retain all options until the

end. Indeed, a meeting to discuss the sharing of atomic information was

scheduled for the day FDR was to return from Warm Springs, Georgia. The

meeting never took place, leaving one more pivotal issue of contention

unresolved as the war drew to a close.

Conclusion.

Given the nature of the personalities and the nations involved, it was

perhaps not surprising that, as the war drew to an end, virtually none of the

critical issues on the agenda of postwar relationships had been resolved.

Preferring to postpone decisions rather than to confront the full dimension

of the conflicts that existed, FDR evidently hoped that his own political

genius, plus the exigencies of postwar conditions, would pave the way for a

mutual accommodation that would somehow satisfy both America's commitment to

a world of free trade and democratic rule, and the Soviet Union's obsession

with national security and safely defined spheres of influence. The Russians,

in turn, also appeared content to wait, in the meantime working militarily to

secure maximum leverage for achieving their sphere-of-influence goals. What

neither leader nor nation realized, perhaps, was that in their delay and

scheming they were adding fuel to the fire of suspicion that clearly existed

between them and possibly missing the only opportunity that might occur to

forge the basis for mutual accommodation and coexistence.

For nearly half a century, the country had functioned within a political

world shaped by the Cold War and controlled by a passionate anticommunism

that used the Kremlin as its primary foil. Not only did the Cold War define

America's stance in the world, dictating foreign policy choices from

Southeast Asia to Latin-America; it defined the contours of domestic politics

as well. No group could secure legitimacy for its political ideas if they

were critical of American foreign policy, sympa­thetic in any way to

"socialism," or vulnerable to being dismissed as "leftist" or as "soft on

communism." From national health insurance to day care centers for children,

domestic policies suffered from the crippling paralysis created by a national

fixation with the Soviet Union.

Now, it seemed likely that the Cold War would no longer exist as the pivot

around which all American politics revolved. However much politicians were

unaccustomed to talking about anything without anti-communism as a reference

point, it now seemed that they would have to look afresh at problems long

since put aside because they could not be dealt with in a world controlled by

Cold War alliances.

In some ways, America seemed to face the greatest moment of possibility in

all of postwar history as the decade of the 1990s began. So much positive

change had already occurred in the years since World War II—the material

progress, the victories against discrimination, the new horizons that had

opened for education and creativity. But so much remained to be done as well

in a country where homelessness, poverty, and drug addiction reflected the

abiding strength that barriers of race, class, and gender retained in

blocking people's quest for a decent life.

Glossary:

Cold War - is the term used to describe the intense

rivalry that developed after World War II between groups of Communist and

non-Communist nations/ On one side were the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics

(USSR) and its Communist allies, often referred to as the Eastern bloc. On the

other side were the United States and its democratic allies, usually referred

to as the Western bloc. The struggle was called the Cold War because it did not

actually lead to fighting, or "hot" war, on a wide scale.

Iron Curtain - was the popular phrase, which Churchill made

to refer to Soviet barriers against the West. Behind these barriers, the USSR

steadily expanded its power.

Marshall Plan - encouraged European nations to work together

for economic recovery after World War II (1939-1945) / In June 1947, the United

States agreed to administer aid to Europe in the countries would meet to decide

what they needed/ The official name of the plane was the European Recovery

Program. It is called the Marshall Plane because Secretary of the State George

C. Marshall first suggested it.

Potsdam Conference -was the last meeting among the Leaders of Great

Britain, the Soviet Union and the United States, during World War II. The

conference was held at Potsdam, Germany, near Berlin. It opened in July 17,

1945, about two months after Germany's defeat in the war. Present at the

opening were U.S. President Harry S. Truman, British Prime Minister Winston

Churchill, and the Soviet Premier Josef Stalin.

Yalta Conference - was one of the most important meetings of key Allied

Leaders during World War II. These Leaders were President Franklin D. Roosevelt

of the United States, Prime Minister Winston Churchill of Great Britain, and

Premier Josef Stalin of the Soviet Union. Their countries became known as the

"Big Three". The conference took place at Yalta, a famous Black Sea resort in

the Crimea, from Feb. 4 to 11, 1945. Through the years decisions made there

regarding divisions in Europe have stirred bitter debates.

The reference list.

10. Henry Borovik "Cold War", 1997

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