U.S. – Soviet relations

Graduation Paper

on theme:

U.S. – Soviet relations.

Contents.

Introduction. 3

Chapter 1: The Historical Background of Cold War. 5

1.1 The Historical Context. 5

1.2 Causes and Interpretations. 10

Chapter 2: The Cold War Chronology. 17

2.1 The War Years. 17

2.2 The Truman Doctrine. 25

2.3 The Marshall Plan. 34

Chapter 3: The Role of Cold War in American History and Diplomacy. 37

3.1 Declaration of the Cold War. 37

3.2 Сold War Issues. 40

Conclusion. 49

Glossary. 50

The reference list. 51

Introduction.

This graduation paper is about U.S. – Soviet relations in Cold War
period. Our purpose is to find out the causes of this war, positions of
the countries which took part in it. We also will discuss the main Cold
War’s events.

The Cold War was characterized by mutual distrust, suspicion and
misunderstanding by both the United States and Soviet Union, and their
allies. At times, these conditions increased the likelihood of the third
world war. The United States accused the USSR of seeking to expand
Communism throughout the world. The Soviets, meanwhile, charged the
United States with practicing imperialism and with attempting to stop
revolutionary activity in other countries. Each block’s vision of the
world contributed to East-West tension. The United States wanted a world
of independent nations based on democratic principles. The Soviet Union,
however, tried control areas it considered vital to its national
interest, including much of Eastern Europe.

Through the Cold War did not begin until the end of World War II, in
1945, U.S.-Soviet relations had been strained since 1917. In that year,
a revolution in Russia established a Communist dictatorship there.
During the 1920’s and 1930’s, the Soviets called for world revolution
and the destruction of capitalism, the economic system of United States.
The United States did not grant diplomatic recognition to the Soviet
Union until 1933.

In 1941, during World War II, Germany attacked the Soviet Union. The
Soviet Union then joined the Western Allies in fighting Germany. For a
time early in 1945, it seemed possible that a lasting friendship might
develop between the United States and Soviet Union based on their
wartime cooperation. However, major differences continued to exist
between the two, particularly with regard to Eastern Europe. As a result
of these differences, the United States adopted a “get tough” policy
toward the Soviet Union after the war ended. The Soviets responded by
accusing the United States and the other capitalist allies of the West
of seeking to encircle the Soviet Union so they could eventually
overthrow its Communist form of government.

The subject of Cold War interests American historicans and journalists
as well as Russian ones. In particular, famous journalist Henryh Borovik
fraces this topic in his book. He analyzes the events of Cold War from
the point of view of modern Russian man. With appearing of democracy and
freedom of speech we could free ourselves from past stereotype in
perception of Cold War’s events as well as America as a whole, we also
learnt something new about American people’s real life and personality.
A new developing stage of relations with the United States has begun
with the collapse of the Soviet Union on independent states. And in
order to direct these relations in the right way it is necessary to
study events of Cold War very carefully and try to avoid past mistakes.
Therefore this subject is so much popular in our days.

This graduation paper consist of three chapters. The first chapter
maintain the historical documents which comment the origins of the Cold
War.

The second chapter maintain information about the most popular Cold
War’s events.

The third chapter analyze the role of Cold War in World policy and
diplomacy. The chapter also adduce the Cold War issues.Chapter 1: The
Historical Background of Cold War.

1.1 The Historical Context.

The animosity of postwar Soviet-American relations drew on a deep
reservoir of mutual distrust. Soviet suspicion of the United States went
back to America’s hostile reaction to the Bolshevik revolution itself.
At the end of World War I, President Woodrow Wilson had sent more than
ten thousand American soldiers as part of an expeditionary allied force
to overthrow the new Soviet regime by force. When that venture failed,
the United States nevertheless withheld its recognition of the Soviet
government. Back in the United States, meanwhile, the fear of Marxist
radicalism reached an hysterical pitch with the Red Scare of 1919-20.
Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer ordered government agents to arrest
3,000 purported members of the Communist party, and then attempted to
deport them. American attitudes toward the seemed encapsulated in the
comments of one minister who called for the removal of communists in
“ships of stone with sails of lead, with the wrath of God for a breeze
and with hell for their first port.”

American attitudes toward the Soviet Union, in turn, reflected profound
concern about Soviet violation of human rights, democratic procedures,
and international rules of civility. With brutal force, Soviet leaders
had imposed from above a revolution of agricultural collectivization and
industrialization. Millions had died as a consequence of forced removal
from their lands. Anyone who protested was killed or sent to one of the
hundreds of prison camps which, in Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s words,
stretched across the Soviet Union like a giant archipelago. What kind of
people were these, one relative of a prisoner asked, “who first decreed
and then carried out this mass destruction of their own kind?”
Furthermore, Soviet foreign policy seemed committed to the spread of
revolution to other countries, with international coordination of
subversive activities placed in the hands of the Comintern. It was
difficult to imagine two more different societies.

For a brief period after the United States granted diplomatic
recognition to the Soviet Union in 1933, a new spirit of cooperation
prevailed. But by the end of the 1930s suspicion and alienation had once
again become dominant. From a Soviet perspective, the United States
seemed unwilling to join collectively to oppose the Japanese and German
menace. On two occasions, the United States had refused to act in
concert against Nazi Germany. When Britain and France agreed at Munich
to appease Adolph Hitler, the Soviets gave up on any possibility of
allied action against Germany and talked of a capitalist effort to
encircle and destroy the Soviet regime.

Yet from a Western perspective, there seemed little basis for
distinguishing between Soviet tyranny and Nazi totalitarianism. Between
1936 and 1938 Stalin engaged in his own holocaust, sending up to 6
million Soviet citizens to their deaths in massive purge trials. Stalin
“saw enemies everywhere,” his daughter later recalled, and with a
vengeance frightening in its irrationality, sought to destroy them. It
was an “orgy of terror,” one historian said. Diplomats saw high
officials tapped on the shoulder in public places, removed from
circulation, and then executed. Foreigners were subject to constant
surveillance. It was as if, George Kennan noted, outsiders were
representatives of “the devil, evil and dangerous, and to be shunned.”

On the basis of such experience, many Westerners concluded that Hitler
and Stalin were two of a kind, each reflecting a blood-thirsty obsession
with power no matter what the cost to human decency. “Nations, like
individuals,” Kennan said in 1938, “are largely the products of their
environment.” As Kennan perceived it, the Soviet personality was
neurotic, conspiratorial, and untrustworthy. Such impressions were only
reinforced when Stalin suddenly announced a nonaggression treaty with
Hitler in August 1939, and later that year invaded the small, neutral
state of Finland. It seemed that Stalin and Hitler deserved each other.
Hence, the reluctance of some to change their attitudes toward the
Soviet Union when suddenly, in June 1941, Germany invaded Russia and
Stalin became “Uncle Joe.”

Compounding the problem of historical distrust was the different way in
which the two nations viewed foreign policy. Ever since John Winthrop
had spoken of Boston in 1630 as “a city upon a hill” that would serve as
a beacon for the world, Americans had tended to see themselves as a
chosen people with a distinctive mission to impart their faith and
values to the rest of humankind. Although all countries attempt to put
the best face possible on their military and diplomatic actions,
Americans have seemed more committed than most to describing their
involvement in the world as pure and altruistic. Hence, even ventures
like the Mexican War of 1846 – 48 – clearly provoked by the United
States in an effort to secure huge land masses – were defended publicly
as the fulfillment of a divine mission to extend American democracy to
those deprived of it.

Reliance on the rhetoric of moralism was never more present than during
America’s involvement in World War I. Despite its official posture of
neutrality, the United States had a vested interest in the victory of
England and France over Germany. America’s own military security, her
trade lines with England and France, economic and political control over
Latin America and South America – all would best be preserved if Germany
were defeated. Moreover, American banks and munition makers had invested
millions of dollars in the allied cause. Nevertheless, the issue of
national self-interest rarely if ever surfaced in any presidential
statement during the war. Instead, U.S. rhetoric presented America’s
position as totally idealistic in nature. The United States entered the
war, President Wilson declared, not for reasons of economic
self-interest, but to “make the world safe for democracy.” Our purpose
was not to restore a balance of power in Europe, but to fight a war that
would “end all wars” and produce “a peace without victory.” Rather than
seek a sphere of influence for American power, the United States instead
declared that it sought to establish a new form of internationalism
based on self-determination for all peoples, freedom of the seas, the
end of all economic barriers between nations, and development of a new
international order based on the principles of democracy.

America’s historic reluctance to use arguments of self-interest as a
basis for foreign policy undoubtedly reflected a belief that, in a
democracy, people would not support foreign ventures inconsistent with
their own sense of themselves as a noble and just country. But the
consequences were to limit severely the flexibility necessary to a
multifaceted and effective diplomacy, and to force national leaders to
invoke moral – even religious – idealism as a basis for actions that
might well fall short of the expectations generated by moralistic
visions.

The Soviet Union, by contrast, operated with few such constraints.
Although Soviet pronouncements on foreign policy tediously invoked the
rhetoric of capitalist imperialism, abstract principles meant far less
than national self-interest in arriving at foreign policy positions.
Every action that the Soviet Union had taken since the Bolshevik
revolution, from the peace treaty with the Kaiser to the 1939
Nazi-Soviet pact and Russian occupation of the Baltic states reflected
this policy of self-interest. As Stalin told British Foreign Minister
Anthony Eden during the war, “a declaration I regard as algebra … I
prefer practical arithmetic.” Or, as the Japanese ambassador to Moscow
later said, “the Soviet authorities are extremely realistic and it is
most difficult to persuade them with abstract arguments.” Clearly, both
the United States and the Soviet Union saw foreign policy as involving a
combination of self-interest and ideological principle. Yet the history
of the two countries suggested that principle was far more a
consideration in the formulation of American foreign policy, while
self-interest-purely defined-controlled Soviet actions.

The difference became relevant during the 1930s as Franklin Roosevelt
attempted to find some way to move American public opinion back to a
spirit of internationalism. After World War I, Americans had felt
betrayed by the abandonment of Wilsonian principles. Persuaded that the
war itself represented a mischievous conspiracy by munitions makers and
bankers to get America involved, Americans had preferred to opt for
isolation and “normalcy” rather than participate in the ambiguities of
what so clearly appeared to be a corrupt international order. Now,
Roosevelt set out to reverse those perceptions. He understood the dire
consequences of Nazi ambitions for world hegemony. Yet to pose the issue
strictly as one of self-interest offered little chance of success given
the depth of America’s revulsion toward internationalism. The task of
education was immense. As time went on, Roosevelt relied more and more
on the traditional moral rhetoric of American values as a means of
justifying the international involvement that he knew must inevitably
lead to war. Thus, throughout the 1930s he repeatedly discussed Nazi
aggression as a direct threat to the most cherished American beliefs in
freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and freedom of occupational
choice. When German actions corroborated the president’s simple words,
the opportunity presented itself for carrying the nation toward another
great crusade on behalf of democracy, freedom, and peace. Roosevelt
wished to avoid the errors of Wilsonian overstatement, but he understood
the necessity of generating moral fervor as a means of moving the nation
toward the intervention he knew to be necessary if both America’s
self-interest-and her moral principles-were to be preserved.

The Atlantic Charter represented the embodiment of Roosevelt’s quest for
moral justification of American involvement. Presented to the world
after the president and Prime Minister Churchill met off the coast of
Newfoundland in the summer of 1941, the Charter set forth the common
goals that would guide America over the next few years. There would be
no secret commitments, the President said. Britain and America sought no
territorial aggrandizement. They would oppose any violation of the right
to self-government for all peoples. They stood for open trade, free
exchange of ideas, freedom of worship and expression, and the creation
of an international organization to preserve and protect future peace.
This would be a war fought for freedom—freedom from fear, freedom from
want, freedom of religion, freedom from the old politics of
balance-of-power diplomacy.

Roosevelt deeply believed in those ideals and saw no inconsistency
between the moral principles they represented and American
self-interest. Yet these very commitments threatened to generate
misunderstanding and conflict with the Soviet Union whose own priorities
were much more directly expressed in terms of “practical arithmetic.”
Russia wanted security. The Soviet Union sought a sphere of influence
over which it could have unrestricted control. It wished territorial
boundaries that would reflect the concessions won through military
conflict. All these objectives-potentially-ran counter to the Atlantic
Charter. Roosevelt himself-never afraid of inconsistency-often talked
the same language. Frequently, he spoke of guaranteeing the USSR
“measures of legitimate security” on territorial questions, and he
envisioned a postwar world in which the “four policemen”-the
superpowers-would manage the world.

But Roosevelt also understood that the American public would not accept
the public embrace of such positions. A rationale of narrow
self-interest was not acceptable, especially if that self-interest led
to abandoning the ideals of the Atlantic Charter. In short, the
different ways in which the Soviet Union and the United States
articulated their objectives for the war—and formulated their foreign
policy—threatened to compromise the prospect for long-term cooperation.
The language of universalism and the language of balance-of-power
politics were incompatible, at least in theory. Thus, the United States
and the Soviet Union entered the war burdened not only by their deep
mistrust of each other’s motivations and systems of government, but also
by a significantly different emphasis on what should constitute the
major rationale for fighting the war.

1.2 Causes and Interpretations.

Any historian who studies the Cold War must come to grips with a series
of questions, which, even if unanswerable in a definitive fashion,
nevertheless compel examination. Was the Cold War inevitable? If not,
how could it have been avoided? What role did personalities play? Were
there points at which different courses of action might have been
followed? What economic factors were central? What ideological causes?
Which historical forces? At what juncture did alternative possibilities
become invalid? When was the die cast? Above all, what were the primary
reasons for defining the world in such a polarized and ideological
framework?

The simplest and easiest response is to conclude that Soviet-American
confrontation was so deeply rooted in differences of values, economic
systems, or historical experiences that only extraordinary action— by
individuals or groups—could have prevented the conflict. One version of
the inevitability hypothesis would argue that the Soviet Union, given
its commitment to the ideology of communism, was dedicated to worldwide
revolution and would use any and every means possible to promote the
demise of the West. According to this view—based in large part on the
rhetoric of Stalin and Lenin—world revolution constituted the sole
priority of Soviet policy. Even the appearance of accommodation was a
Soviet design to soften up capitalist states for eventual confrontation.
As defined, admittedly in oversimplified fashion, by George Kennan in
his famous 1947 article on containment, Russian diplomacy “moves along
the prescribed path, like a persistent toy automobile, wound up and
headed in a given direction, stopping only when it meets some
unanswerable force.” Soviet subservience to a universal, religious creed
ruled out even the possibility of mutual concessions, since even
temporary accommodation would be used by the Russians as part of their
grand scheme to secure world domination.

A second version of the same hypothesis—argued by some American
revisionist historians—contends that the endless demands of capitalism
for new markets propelled the United States into a course of
intervention and imperialism. According to this argument, a capitalist
society can survive only by opening new areas for exploitation. Without
the development of multinational corporations, strong ties with German
capitalists, and free trade across national boundaries, America would
revert to the depression of the prewar years. Hence, an aggressive
internationalism became the only means through which the ruling class of
the United States could retain hegemony. In support of this argument,
historians point to the number of American policymakers who explicitly
articulated an economic motivation for U.S. foreign policy. “We cannot
expect domestic prosperity under our system,” Assistant Secretary of
State Dean Acheson said, “without a constantly expanding trade with
other nations.” Echoing the same theme, the State Department’s William
Clayton declared: “We need markets—big markets—around the world in which
to buy and sell. . . . We’ve got to export three times as much as we
exported just before the war if we want to keep our industry running
somewhere near capacity.” According to this argument, economic necessity
motivated the Truman Doctrine, the Marshall Plan, and the vigorous
efforts of U.S. policymakers to open up Eastern Europe for trade and
investment. Within such a frame of reference, it was the capitalist
economic system—not Soviet commitment to world revolution—that made the
Cold War unavoidable.

Still a third version of the inevitability hypothesis—partly based on
the first two—would insist that historical differences between the two
superpowers and their systems of government made any efforts toward
postwar cooperation almost impossible. Russia had always been deeply
suspicious of the West, and under Stalin that suspicion had escalated
into paranoia, with Soviet leaders fearing that any opening of channels
would ultimately destroy their own ability to retain total mastery over
the Russian people. The West’s failure to implement early promises of a
second front and the subsequent divisions of opinion over how to treat
occupied territory had profoundly strained any possible basis of trust.
From an American perspective, in turn, it stretched credibility to
expect a nation committed to human rights to place confidence in a
ruthless dictator, who in one Yugoslav’s words, had single-handedly been
responsible for more Soviet deaths than all the armies of Nazi Germany.
Through the purges, collectivization, and mass imprisonment of Russian
citizens, Stalin had presided over the killing of 20 million of his own
people. How then could he be trusted to respect the rights of others?
According to this argument, only the presence of a common enemy had made
possible even short-term solidarity between Russia and the United
States; in the absence of a German foe, natural antagonisms were bound
to surface. America had one system of politics, Russia another, and as
Truman declared in 1948, “a totalitarian state is no different whether
you call it Nazi, fascist, communist, or Franco Spain.”

Yet, in retrospect, these arguments for inevitability tell only part of
the story. Notwithstanding the Soviet Union’s rhetorical commitment to
an ideology of world revolution, there is abundant evidence of Russia’s
willingness to forego ideological purity in the cause of national
interest. Stalin, after all, had turned away from world revolution in
committing himself to building “socialism in one country.” Repeatedly,
he indicated his readiness to betray the communist movement in China and
to accept the leadership of Chiang Kai-shek. George Kennan recalled the
Soviet leader “snorting rather contemptuously . . . because one of our
people asked them what they were going to give to China when [the war]
was over.” “We have a hundred cities of our own to build in the Soviet
Far East,” Stalin had responded. “If anybody is going to give anything
to the Far East, I think it’s you.” Similarly, Stalin refused to give
any support to communists in Greece during their rebellion against
British domination there. As late as 1948 he told the vice-premier of
Yugoslavia, “What do you think, . . . that Great Britain and the United
States . . . will permit you to break their lines of communication in
the Mediterranean? Nonsense . . . the uprising in Greece must be
stopped, and as quickly as possible.”

Nor are the other arguments for inevitability totally persuasive.
Without question, America’s desire for commercial markets played a role
in the strategy of the Cold War. As Truman said in 1949, devotion to
freedom of enterprise “is part and parcel of what we call America.” Yet
was the need for markets sufficient to force a confrontation that
ultimately would divert precious resources from other, more productive
use? Throughout most of its history, Wall Street has opposed a bellicose
position in foreign policy. Similarly, although historical differences
are important, it makes no sense to regard them as determinative. After
all, the war led to extraordinary examples of cooperation that bridged
these differences; if they could be overcome once, then why not again?
Thus, while each of the arguments for inevitability reflects truths that
contributed to the Cold War, none offers an explanation sufficient of
itself, for contending that the Cold War was unavoidable.

A stronger case, it seems, can be made for the position that the Cold
War was unnecessary, or at least that conflicts could have been handled
in a manner that avoided bipolarization and the rhetoric of an
ideological crusade. At no time did Russia constitute a military threat
to the United States. “Economically,” U.S. Naval Intelligence reported
in 1946, “the Soviet Union is exhausted…. The USSR is not expected to
take any action in the next five years which might develop into
hostility with Anglo Americans.” Notwithstanding the Truman
administration’s public statements about a Soviet threat, Russia had cut
its army from 11.5 to 3 million men after the war. In 1948, its military
budget amounted to only half of that of the United States. Even militant
anticommunists like John Foster Dulles acknowledged that “the Soviet
leadership does not want and would not consciously risk” a military
confrontation with the West. Indeed, so exaggerated was American
rhetoric about Russia’s threat that Hanson Baldwin, military expert of
the New York Times, compared the claims of our armed forces to the
“shepherd who cried wolf, wolf, wolf, when there was no wolf.” Thus, on
purely factual grounds, there existed no military basis for the fear
that the Soviet Union was about to seize world domination, despite the
often belligerent pose Russia took on political issues.

A second, somewhat more problematic, argument for the thesis of
avoidability consists of the extent to which Russian leaders appeared
ready to abide by at least some agreements made during the war. Key,
here, is the understanding reached by Stalin and Churchill during the
fall of 1944 on the division of Europe into spheres of influence.
According to that understanding, Russia was to dominate Romania, have a
powerful voice over Bulgaria, and share influence in other Eastern
European countries, while Britain and America were to control Greece. By
most accounts, that understanding was implemented. Russia refused to
intervene on behalf of communist insurgency in Greece. While retaining
rigid control over Romania, she provided at least a “fig-leaf of
democratic procedure”—sufficient to satisfy the British. For two years
the USSR permitted the election of noncommunist or coalition regimes in
both Hungary and Czechoslovakia. The Finns, meanwhile, were permitted to
choose a noncommunist government and to practice Western-style democracy
as long as their country maintained a friendly foreign policy toward
their neighbor on the east. Indeed, to this day, Finland remains an
example of what might have evolved had earlier wartime understandings on
both sides been allowed to continue.

What then went wrong? First, it seems clear that both sides perceived
the other as breaking agreements that they thought had been made. By
signing a separate peace settlement with the Lublin Poles, imprisoning
the sixteen members of the Polish underground, and imposing—without
regard for democratic appearances—total hegemony on Poland, the Soviets
had broken the spirit, if not the letter, of the Yalta accords.
Similarly, they blatantly violated the agreement made by both powers to
withdraw from Iran once the war was over, thus precipitating the first
direct threat of military confrontation during the Cold War. In their
attitude toward Eastern Europe, reparations, and peaceful cooperation
with the West, the Soviets exhibited increasing rigidity and suspicion
after April 1945. On the other hand, Stalin had good reason to accuse
the United States of reneging on compacts made during the war. After at
least tacitly accepting Russia’s right to a sphere of influence in
Eastern Europe, the West seemed suddenly to change positions and insist
on Western-style democracies and economies. As the historian Robert
Daliek has shown, Roosevelt and Churchill gave every indication at
Tehran and Yalta that they acknowledged the Soviet’s need to have
friendly governments in Eastern Europe. Roosevelt seemed to care
primarily about securing token or cosmetic concessions toward democratic
processes while accepting the substance of Russian domination. Instead,
misunderstanding developed over the meaning of the Yalta accords, Truman
confronted Molotov with demands that the Soviets saw as inconsistent
with prior understandings, and mutual suspicion rather than cooperation
assumed dominance in relations between the two superpowers.

It is this area of misperception and misunderstanding that historians
have focused on recently as most critical to the emergence of the Cold
War. Presumably, neither side had a master plan of how to proceed once
the war ended. Stalin’s ambitions, according to recent scholarship, were
ill-defined, or at least amenable to modification depending on America’s
posture. The United States, in turn, gave mixed signals, with Roosevelt
implying to every group his agreement with their point of view, yet
ultimately keeping his personal intentions secret. If, in fact, both
sides could have agreed to a sphere-of-influence policy—albeit with some
modifications to satisfy American political opinion—there could perhaps
have been a foundation for continued accommodation. Clearly, the United
States intended to retain control over its sphere of influence,
particularly in Greece, Italy, and Turkey. Moreover, the United States
insisted on retaining total domination over the Western hemisphere,
consistent with the philosophy of the Monroe Doctrine. If the Soviets
had been allowed similar control over their sphere of influence in
Eastern Europe, there might have existed a basis for compromise. As John
McCloy asked at the time, “[why was it necessary] to have our cake and
eat it too? . . . To be free to operate under this regional arrangement
in South America and at the same time intervene promptly in Europe.” If
the United States and Russia had both acknowledged the spheres of
influence implicit in their wartime agreements, perhaps a different
pattern of relationships might have emerged in the postwar world.

The fact that such a pattern did not emerge raises two issues, at least
from an American perspective. The first is whether different leaders or
advisors might have achieved different foreign policy results. Some
historians believe that Roosevelt, with his subtlety and skill, would
have found a way to promote collaboration with the Russians, whereas
Truman, with his short temper, inexperience, and insecurity, blundered
into unnecessary and harmful confrontations. Clearly, Roosevelt
himself—just before his death—was becoming more and more concerned about
Soviet intransigence and aggression. Nevertheless, he had always
believed that through personal pressure and influence, he could find a
way to persaude “uncle Joe.” On the basis of what evidence we have,
there seems good reason to believe that the Russians did place enormous
trust in FDR. Perhaps—just perhaps—Roosevelt could have found a way to
talk “practical arithmetic” with Stalin rather than algebra and discover
a common ground. Certainly, if recent historians are correct in seeing
the Cold War as caused by both Stalin’s undefined ambitions and
America’s failure to communicate effectively and consistently its view
on where it would draw the line with the Russians, then Roosevelt’s long
history of interaction with the Soviets would presumably have placed him
in a better position to negotiate than the inexperienced Truman.

The second issue is more complicated, speaking to a political problem
which beset both Roosevelt and Truman—namely, the ability of an American
president to formulate and win support for a foreign policy on the basis
of national self-interest rather than moral purity. At some point in the
past, an American diplomat wrote in 1967:

[T]here crept into the ideas of Americans about foreign policy … a
histrionic note, … a desire to appear as something greater perhaps
than one actually was. … It was inconceivable that any war in which we
were involved could be less than momentous and decisive for the future
of humanity. … As each war ended, … we took appeal to
universalistic, Utopian ideals, related not to the specifics of national
interest but to legalistic and moralistic concepts that seemed better to
accord with the pretentious significance we had attached to our war
effort.

As a consequence, the diplomat went on, it became difficult to pursue a
policy not defined by the language of “angels or devils,” “heroes” or
“blackguards.”

Clearly, Roosevelt faced such a dilemma in proceeding to mobilize
American support for intervention in the war against Nazism. And Truman
encountered the same difficulty in seeking to define a policy with which
to meet Soviet postwar objectives. Both presidents, of course,
participated in and reflected the political culture that constrained
their options. Potentially at least, Roosevelt seemed intent on fudging
the difference between self-interest and moralism. He perceived one set
of objectives as consistent with reaching an accommodation with the
Soviets, and another set of goals as consistent with retaining popular
support for his diplomacy at home. It is difficult to avoid the
conclusion that he planned—in a very Machiavellian way—to use rhetoric
and appearances as a means of disguising his true intention: to pursue a
strategy of self-interest. It seems less clear that Truman had either
the subtlety or the wish to follow a similarly Machiavellian course. But
if he had, the way might have been opened to quite a different—albeit
politically risky— series of policies.

None of this, of course, would have guaranteed the absence of conflict
in Eastern Europe, Iran, or Turkey. Nor could any action of an American
president—however much rooted in self-interest—have obviated the
personal and political threat posed by Stalinist tyranny and
ruthlessness, particularly if Stalin himself had chosen, for whatever
reason, to act out his most aggressive and paranoid instincts. But if a
sphere-of-influence agreement had been possible, there is some reason to
think—in light of initial Soviet acceptance of Western-style governments
in Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and Finland—that the iron curtain might not
have descended in the way that it did. In all historical sequences, one
action builds on another. Thus, steps toward cooperation rather than
confrontation might have created a momentum, a frame of reference and a
basis of mutual trust, that could have made unnecessary the total
ideological bipolarization that evolved by 1948. In short, if the
primary goals of each superpower had been acknowledged and
implemented—security for the Russians, some measure of pluralism in
Eastern European countries for the United States, and economic
interchange between the two blocs—it seems conceivable that the world
might have avoided the stupidity, the fear, and the hysteria of the Cold
War.

As it was, of course, very little of the above scenario did take place.
After the confrontation in Iran, the Soviet declaration of a five-year
plan, Churchill’s Fulton, Missouri, speech, and the breakdown of
negotiations on an American loan, confrontation between the two
superpowers seemed irrevocable. It is difficult to imagine that the
momentum building toward the Cold War could have been reversed after the
winter and spring of 1946. Thereafter, events assumed an almost
inexorable momentum, with both sides using moralistic rhetoric and
ideological denunciation to pillory the other. In the United States it
became incumbent on the president—in order to secure domestic political
support—to defend the Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan in
universalistic, moral terms. Thus, we became engaged, not in an effort
to assure jobs and security, but in a holy war against evil. Stalin, in
turn, gave full vent to his crusade to eliminate any vestige of free
thought or national independence in Eastern Europe. Reinhold Niebuhr
might have been speaking for both sides when he said in 1948, “we cannot
afford any more compromises. We will have to stand at every point in our
far flung lines.”

The tragedy, of course, was that such a policy offered no room for
intelligence or flexibility. If the battle in the world was between good
and evil, believers and nonbelievers, anyone who questioned the wisdom
of established policy risked dismissal as a traitor or worse. In the
Soviet Union the Gulag Archipelago of concentration camps and executions
was the price of failing to conform to the party line. But the United
States paid a price as well. An ideological frame of reference had
emerged through which all other information was filtered. The mentality
of the Cold War shaped everything, defining issues according to
moralistic assumptions, regardless of objective reality. It had been
George Kennan’s telegram in February 1946 that helped to provide the
intellectual basis for this frame of reference by portraying the Soviet
Union as “a political force committed fanatically” to confrontation with
the United States and domination of the world. It was also George Kennan
twenty years later who so searchingly criticized those who insisted on
seeing foreign policy as a battle of angels and devils, heroes and
blackguards. And ironically, it was Kennan yet again who declared in the
1970s that “the image of a Stalinist Russia, poised and yearning to
attack the west, . . . was largely a product of the western
imagination.”

But for more than a generation, that image would shape American life and
world politics. The price was astronomical—and perhaps— avoidable.

Chapter 2: The Cold War Chronology.

2.1 The War Years.

Whatever tensions existed before the war, conflicts over military and
diplomatic issues during the war proved sufficiently grave to cause
additional mistrust. Two countries that in the past had shared almost no
common ground now found themselves intimately tied to each other, with
little foundation of mutual confidence on which to build. The problems
that resulted clustered in two areas: (1) how much aid the West would
provide to alleviate the disproportionate burden borne by the Soviet
Union in fighting the war; and (2) how to resolve the dilemmas of making
peace, occupying conquered territory, and defining postwar
responsibilities. Inevitably, each issue became inextricably bound to
the others, posing problems of statecraft and good faith that perhaps
went beyond the capacity of any mortal to solve.

The central issue dividing the allies involved how much support the
United States and Britain would offer to mitigate, then relieve, the
devastation being sustained by the Soviet people. Stated bluntly, the
Soviet Union bore the massive share of Nazi aggression. The statistics
alone are overwhelming. Soviet deaths totaled more than 18 million
during the war—sixty times the three hundred thousand lives lost by the
United States. Seventy thousand Soviet villages were destroyed, $128
billion dollars worth of property leveled to the ground. Leningrad, the
crown jewel of Russia’s cities, symbolized the suffering experienced at
the hands of the Nazis. Filled with art and beautiful architecture, the
former capital of Russia came under siege by German armies almost
immediately after the invasion of the Soviet Union. When the attack
began, the city boasted a population of 3 million citizens. At the end,
only 600,000 remained. There was no food, no fuel, no hope. More than a
million starved, and some survived by resorting to cannibalism. Yet the
city endured, the Nazis were repelled, and the victory that came with
survival helped launch the campaign that would ultimately crush Hitler’s
tyranny.

Such suffering provided the backdrop for a bitter controversy over
whether 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 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.

1. William H. Chafe

“The Unfinished Journey: America since World War II” New York Oxford,
Oxford University press, 1991.

2. David Caute “The Great Fear”, 1978

3. Michael Belknap “Cold War Political Justice”, 1977

4. Allen D. Harper “The politics of Loyalty”, 1959

5. Robert Griffin “The politics of Fear”, 1970

6. James Wechler “The Age Suspicion” 1980

7. Alistair Cooke “A Generation on Trial”, 1950

8. An outline of American History

9. World Book

10. Henry Borovik “Cold War”, 1997

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