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ROOSEVELT AND THE RUSSIANS

THE YALTA CONFERENCE

BY

EDWARD R. STETTINIUS, JR.

Edited by

WALTER JOHNSON

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Contents

TABLE OF CONTENTS 3

DEDICATION 5

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 6

FOREWORD 7

ILLUSTRATIONS 9

PART ONE—TRYING TO BUILD A BETTER WORLD 10

CHAPTER 1—Background of the Yalta Conference 10

CHAPTER 2—Meetings at Marrakech and Naples 23

CHAPTER 3—Rendezvous at Malta 40

PART TWO—AT THE CONFERENCE 53

CHAPTER 4—Argonaut 53

CHAPTER 5—The Big Three Meet (February 4) 68

CHAPTER 6—The German Question (February 5) 78

CHAPTER 7—The Big Three Veto Power (February 6) 92

CHAPTER 8—Captain of Her Soul (February 6) 105

CHAPTER 9—A Step Forward (February 7) 110

CHAPTER 10—Planning the World Security Conference (February 8) 130

CHAPTER 11—The Glories of Future Possibilities Stretching Before Us (February 8) 141

CHAPTER 12—The Sixth Day of the Conference (February 9) 148

CHAPTER 13—The High Tide of Allied Unity (February 10) 166

CHAPTER 14—The End of the Conference (February 11) 188

PART THREE—THE BALANCE SHEET 199

CHAPTER 15—Appeasement or Realism? 199

CHAPTER 16—The Breakdown after Yalta 210

APPENDIX 219

SUMMARY OF THE MAJOR DIPLOMATIC MEETINGS AT THE YALTA CONFERENCE 219

REPORT OF THE CRIMEA CONFERENCE 224

PROTOCOL OF THE PROCEEDINGS OF THE CRIMEA CONFERENCE 230

AGREEMENT ON TERMS FOR ENTRY OF THE SOVIET UNION INTO THE WAR AGAINST JAPAN, SIGNED AT YALTA, FEBRUARY 11, 1945, RELEASED SIMULTANEOUSLY IN LONDON, MOSCOW, AND WASHINGTON, FEBRUARY 11, 1946 236

REQUEST FROM THE PUBLISHER 238

DEDICATION

TO VIRGINIA WALLACE STETTINIUS

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Many of my friends read the next to final draft of this book and offered helpful suggestions. Above all I am deeply grateful to Dr. Leo Pasvolsky, of the Brookings Institution, for his critical reading of different drafts and for making invaluable recommendations.

W. F. Richmond and Norman Portenoy kindly supplied information about the trip to and from Yalta, and Dr. T. L. Tyson’s personal diary furnished interesting material.

A not inconsiderable contribution—in the form of typing the various drafts of the manuscript and other details—was made by Constance Myers, Lucy Stockwell, Carol Tanner, Betty Jane Swan, Fred T. Lininger, Jean Facey, Leona Lusin, Sara Morgan, and Lois Holmes.

The staff of the Alderman Library, the University of Virginia—particularly Harry Clemons, Francis L. Berkeley, Jr., and William Gaines—have been most cooperative.

Ivan von Auw, Jr., of the Harold Ober Agency, too, was helpful at all times.

Our great indebtedness to Lilburn F. Wallace for his untiring efforts cannot be adequately expressed.

FOREWORD

A deep respect for the memory of President Roosevelt and unshaken faith in the rightness of his foreign policy have impelled me to write this book about the Yalta Conference.

The American people have encountered grave disappointments in our relations with the Soviet Union since 1945. These have resulted in widespread acceptance of the idea that at Yalta vital interests of the United States were sacrificed to appeasement of the Soviet Union.

This idea is false. It is not Yalta that is the trouble with the world today, but subsequent failures to adhere to the policies Yalta stood for and to carry out agreements that were reached there. Difficulties have developed, not from the agreements reached at Yalta, but from the failure of the Soviet Union to honor those agreements.

The Conference itself was an honest effort on the part of Great Britain and the United States to determine whether or not long-range co-operation with the Soviet Union could be attained. Had such an effort not been made the world would quite rightly be in doubt as to where the blame lies for the present world situation.

I firmly believe that when all the evidence is in and when the Conference is seen in its proper perspective Yalta will become a symbol—not of appeasement, but of a wise and courageous attempt by President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Churchill to set the world on the road to lasting peace.

It is important for the public to know exactly what took place in the Crimea and, almost equally important, what did not take place. I was present at Yalta as Secretary of State, and there are certain facts that may be known to me alone since the deaths of President Roosevelt and Harry Hopkins. There were also other participants who could help clear the record. I hope they will come forward.

In the writing of this book I have associated myself with Walter Johnson, a member of the History Department of the University of Chicago and author of William Allen White’s America. Mr. Johnson, a trained historian, who brings a fresh insight to the Yalta story, has assisted me in placing this Conference in its proper perspective in the unfolding of American foreign policy and in filling an important gap that has hitherto existed in the history of the war period.

Mr. Johnson and I, working together, have condensed and rearranged my notes on Yalta for this present book. I have had access to copies of official documents covering this period. In addition we have discussed this manuscript with a number of individuals who were active in various aspects of the Conference.

I also have had the privilege of conversations over a period of time with President Harry S. Truman, and he has wholeheartedly supported me in my effort to clarify the record and to write a truthful, factual account of this important Conference.

The royalties from this book will go to an educational and charitable foundation.

EDWARD R. STETTINIUS, JR.

The Horseshoe

Rapidan, Virginia

ILLUSTRATIONS

Winston Churchill, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Joseph Stalin at Livadia Palace

The Yalta Conference in session

Ambassador Gromyko, Mr. Stettinius, and Sir Alexander Cadogan at Saki airfield

The three foreign ministers sign the Protocol of the Yalta Conference

President Roosevelt, Prime Minister Churchill, Molotov, Stettinius, Vishinsky, and Harriman

Livadia Palace, the official headquarters of the Yalta Conference, and the American residence

The courtyard at Livadia Palace

President Roosevelt’s study in Livadia Palace

Russian maids making President Roosevelt’s bed

Secretary of State Hull, Edward R. Stettinius, Jr., and Assistant Secretary of State Dean Acheson

Mr. Stettinius with Alger Hiss of the State Department delegation

Marshal Stalin and Prime Minister Churchill

Marshal Stalin confers with Mr. Roosevelt at Livadia Palace

Winston Churchill with Secretary Stettinius

Marshal Stalin, Foreign Minister Molotov, and Deputy Foreign Minister Vishinsky

President Roosevelt with King Farouk of Egypt

Ibn Saud of Saudi Arabia and the President

Emperor Haile Selassie and the President

Ambassador John G. Winant, Anna Roosevelt Boettiger, and Harry Hopkins

Molotov, Eden, and Stettinius

President Roosevelt with Secretary of State Stettinius and Marshal Stalin

The Prime Minister and the President aboard the U.S.S. Quincy in Malta Harbor

PART ONE—TRYING TO BUILD A BETTER WORLD

CHAPTER 1—Background of the Yalta Conference

The Yalta Conference—February 4–11, 1945—was the most important wartime meeting of the leaders of Great Britain, the Soviet Union, and the United States. It was not only the longest meeting of President Roosevelt with Prime Minister Churchill and Marshal Stalin; it was also the first time that the three leaders reached fundamental agreements on post-war problems as distinct from mere statements of aims and purposes. Many problems of a non-military nature had been discussed at Teheran, but basic agreements were not reached or even attempted.

This was the second time the three war leaders had met, but it was the first occasion on which they had met with all their foreign ministers. Although Anthony Eden and V. M. Molotov had participated in the Teheran Conference—November 28–December 1, 1943—Cordell Hull had not.

The Yalta Conference, too, was the first real occasion on which the Chiefs of Staff of the three countries conducted an exhaustive examination of the respective military positions of the Allied forces and discussed in detail their future plans. The timing of the second front and related military questions had been discussed at Teheran, but it was not until Yalta that sufficient confidence existed among the three nations for a free and open examination of future operational plans.

Thus the Yalta Conference marked the high tide of British, Russian, and American co-operation on the war and on the post-war settlement. In the days immediately after the Conference most American newspapers gave high praise to what had been accomplished in the Crimea.

On February 13, 1945, the New York Times wrote:

The long and detailed agreements announced at the end of the second conference between President Roosevelt, Prime Minister Churchill and Marshal Stalin and now submitted to the judgment of the world are so broad and sweeping that it will take a detailed analysis and a demonstration of their application in actual practice to measure their full scope and final implications. But even the first glance gives assurance that, though they may disappoint some individual expectations, they justify and surpass most of the hopes placed on this fateful meeting, and in their aims and purposes they show the way to an early victory in Europe, to a secure peace, and to a brighter world....

The alliance of the Big Three stands firm. Progress has been made. The hope of further gains is high. This conference marks a milestone on the road to victory and peace.

The New York Herald Tribune called the Yalta communiqué a remarkable document. The overriding fact, this paper observed, is that the conference has produced another great proof of allied unity, strength and power of decision. The Philadelphia Record termed the Conference the greatest United Nations victory of this war.

Congressional leaders like Senators Barkley, Vandenberg, White, Kilgore, and Connally praised the results of the meeting. A survey of public reaction, conducted for the State Department during the last week of February, revealed that the American people considered the Yalta Conference a success. This survey reported that the Conference had raised hopes for a long-time peace; it had increased satisfaction with the way the Big Three were co-operating, and with the way the President and the State Department were handling American interests abroad.

Although the public reaction to the Yalta communiqué was overwhelmingly favorable, there was a critical minority who singled out a variety of aspects for attack. The voting formula in the Security Council was challenged by some on the basis that the Great Power veto left the proposed world organization without sufficient power. Some bitterly attacked the communiqué for failing to spell out what was involved in the unconditional surrender of Germany. The greater portion of the minority criticism centered on the Polish boundary arrangement and on the new agreement on the Polish Government. In spite of all these attacks, the overall reaction of the country was favorable to the solution of the Polish—as well as to the other—questions.

Three years after the meeting in the Crimea, however, the Yalta Conference was under bitter attack. High Tide of Appeasement Was Reached at the Yalta Conference..., Life declared in its caption to a picture of the Conference. In the same issue of September 6, 1948, William C. Bullitt charged:

At Yalta in the Crimea, on Feb. 4, 1945, the Soviet dictator welcomed the weary President. Roosevelt, indeed, was more than tired. He was ill. Little was left of the physical and mental vigor that had been his when he entered the White House in 1933. Frequently he had difficulty in formulating his thoughts, and greater difficulty in expressing them consecutively. But he still held to his determination to appease Stalin.

Many more bitter statements have been made in recent criticism of the Yalta Conference. Some of them have been based on misunderstanding, others on prejudice. The following pages of this book reveal how unjust they are. The Yalta record, in spite of these attacks, reveals that the Soviet Union made more concessions to the United States and Great Britain than were made to the Soviet Union by either the United States or Great Britain. On certain issues, of course, each of the three Great Powers modified its original position in order to reach agreement. Although it is sometimes alleged that there is something evil in compromise, actually, of course, compromise is necessary for progress as any sensible man knows. Compromise, when reached honorably and in a spirit of honesty by all concerned, is the only fair and rational way of reaching a reasonable agreement between two differing points of view. We should not be led by our dislike and rightful rejection of appeasement in the Munich sense into an irrational and untenable refusal to compromise.

The attacks on the Yalta Conference, excluding those which are motivated by a blind hatred of Franklin D. Roosevelt, really result from bitter disappointment over subsequent failures to carry out the agreements reached at Yalta rather than over the agreements themselves.

The Yalta Conference was the culmination, in many respects, of long and patient efforts, dating back to President Roosevelt’s first term, to find some basis for a new international understanding with Russia. It was not until eight years after diplomatic relations had been restored, and after the Soviet Union had been attacked by Germany on June 22, 1941, that important steps toward effective co-operation took place between the two nations.

Although some American isolationists tried to bar Lend-Lease appropriations for the Soviet Union, Congress affirmed such aid in October by a strong majority. As Walter Lippmann wisely remarked, the United States and the Soviet Union were separated by an ideological gulf and joined by the bridge of national interest.

It is a human frailty to forget too soon the circumstances of past events, and the American people should remember that they were on the brink of disaster in 1942. If the Soviet Union had failed to hold on its front, the Germans would have been in a position to conquer Great Britain. They would have been able to overrun Africa, too, and in this event they could have established a foothold in Latin America. This impending danger was constantly in President Roosevelt’s mind.

Lend-Lease proved to be a powerful cementing force between the two nations. During 1942 the Soviet Union and the United States were just beginning to learn to work together as allies. We did not receive from the Soviet Union the detailed information about its army or about economic conditions within the country which we expected from other Lend-Lease countries. Nor, it must be said, did we give the Russians as much information as the British, for example, received from us. Although this policy has since been criticized, such complete pooling of secret information as took place between the British and the United States was hardly possible in the face of the history of our relations with Russia in the preceding twenty-five years.

The exigencies of war also brought about somewhat closer collaboration between the Soviet Union and the United States. In June 1942, President Roosevelt, Secretary Hull, and Foreign Minister Molotov discussed in Washington not only co-operation in the war, but also the question of maintaining peace, freedom, and security after the war. President Roosevelt told me that Molotov was cold and restrained during the early portion of his visit, but that before his departure he had become friendlier and more cooperative.

Either through diplomatic channels or at the Teheran Conference, Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin had already raised most of the questions that were to be discussed at Yalta. At Teheran, although no agreements had been reached, the three leaders had discussed in a preliminary way such problems as the treatment of Germany, the future of Poland, General de Gaulle and France, Russian participation in the Far Eastern war, a warm-water port for the Soviet Union, colonial empires, Turkey’s entrance into the war, and the founding of an organization of nations.

Actual progress on these and related issues did not occur, however, until Yalta, when a high degree of frankness and co-operation developed among Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin. Although Anglo-American co-operation had developed to a noteworthy degree during the war, diplomatic relations of the two Western powers with the Soviet Union had been far from satisfactory most of the time. Russian disappointment over the unavoidable delay in opening a second front across the Channel was undoubtedly real, and even at the end of 1944 some highly placed Russians were still suspicious of both British and American motives in regard to the future of liberated Europe. All three powers faced, in the months before Yalta, not only the need to push forward plans for a world organization, but a more immediate and urgent need to reach decisions which could be applied as soon as the fighting ended.

As early as 1941 some of the Russian demands in the Balkans and elsewhere were known to us. Shortly after June 22, 1941, Anthony Eden had gone to Moscow to determine what aid the Soviet Union wanted. At this time, even though the Russian armies were in retreat, Stalin indicated that he was less interested in military assistance than in a political alliance and in a territorial settlement affecting Russia’s borders. Then in the months just before Pearl Harbor the Russians became excessively suspicious of British and American intentions toward their post-war claims. Eden, as a consequence, prepared to leave for Moscow again on December 7. He was informed that the American attitude—and it remained the same to the eve of the Yalta Conference—on the post-war settlement was contained in the Atlantic Charter. We would continue to discuss in general terms problems of a territorial nature, but we would delay any commitments as to specific terms until the end of the war.

At his conference with Eden, following Pearl Harbor, Stalin indicated that he wanted a Soviet-Polish boundary based on the Curzon Line, parts of Finland and Hungary were to be incorporated into the Soviet Union, while the Baltic States were to be absorbed. In addition "Stalin also proposed the restoration of Austria as an independent state; the detachment of the Rhineland from Germany as an independent state or protectorate; possibly the constitution of an independent state of Bavaria; the transfer of East Prussia to Poland; the return of the Sudetenland to Czechoslovakia; Yugoslavia should be restored and receive certain additional territory from Italy; Albania should be reconstituted as an independent state; Turkey should receive the Dodecanese Islands, with possible readjustments of Aegean islands in favor of Greece; Turkey might also receive some territory from Bulgaria and in Northern Syria; Germany should pay reparations in kind, particularly in machine tools, but not in money....

"Stalin said he was willing to support any arrangements Britain might make for securing bases in the Western European countries, France, Belgium, The Netherlands, Norway, and Denmark.

Eden parried these demands by saying that for many reasons it was impossible for him to enter into a secret agreement, one of which was that he was pledged to the United States Government not to do so. Stalin and he agreed that Eden should take these provisions back to London for discussion with the British Cabinet, and they should be communicated to the United States.{1}

Our position after this meeting of Stalin and Eden was unchanged: we did not favor territorial settlements until the end of the war. The British, when they signed a treaty of alliance with the Soviet Union on May 26, 1942, also refused to agree to territorial changes at that time. By 1944, however, the progress of the war, particularly in the Balkans, made it clear that some agreement on specific details regarding Europe’s post-war problems had to be made.

On May 30, 1944, British Ambassador Halifax had asked Secretary Hull how the United States would feel about an arrangement between the British and the Russians whereby Russia would have principal military responsibility in Romania and Britain principal military responsibility in Greece. The advance of the Russian armies into the Balkans in April 1944 had brought the relationship between the Soviet Union and the Balkans to the forefront, and Halifax said that difficulties had developed between Russia and the British over the Balkans, particularly with regard to Romania. He explained that the proposed arrangement would apply only to war conditions and would not affect the rights and responsibilities which each of the three Great Powers would exercise at the peace settlement.

Hull expressed opposition to this proposal. The following day Churchill sent a cable to the President urging approval of the proposed arrangement and emphasizing that it applied only to war conditions. Churchill added that he had proposed the arrangement to the Russians and they were willing to accept it but wanted to know whether the United States was in agreement. While the State Department was preparing a reply, Halifax on June 8 brought Hull another message from the Prime Minister. Churchill argued that no question of spheres of influence was involved. He added that it seemed reasonable to him that the Russians should deal with the Romanians and Bulgarians and that the British should deal with the Greeks and the Yugoslavs, who were in Britain’s theater of operations and were Britain’s old allies.

The President sent our reply on June 10, pointing out that the government responsible for military actions in any country would make decisions which the military situation required. On the other hand, the proposed arrangement, he said, might allow these military decisions to extend into political and economic matters. Such a situation, he pointed out, would surely lead to a division of the Balkans into spheres of influence. The United States preferred, he added, to see some consultative machinery to deal with the Balkans.

The Prime Minister cabled back the next day that such machinery would delay action, and he could not see why the President and he could not keep the matter in their own hands. He then suggested that the arrangement be given a three months’ trial.

The President, without consulting the State Department, cabled back acceptance of the three months’ condition. He stressed that by this action he was not agreeing to any post-war arrangement for spheres of influence.

Even with this qualification, I felt then and still believe that this agreement was a serious mistake. I also felt that this lack of proper coordination between the White House and the State Department in the determination and execution of foreign policy was a serious weakness. One of the first steps that I took as Secretary of State was to establish a closer liaison between the White House and the Department by appointing Charles E. Bohlen as liaison officer. He was extremely effective in helping develop the coordination and integration of the diplomatic decisions made by the White House and the State Department.

When Ambassador Gromyko asked the State Department on July 1 our views on the Balkans, he was informed that the United States had agreed to the arrangement for a three months’ trial period, but we wanted it to be made clear that we did not favor the extension of the arrangement into spheres of influence.

Churchill and Stalin at Moscow in October 1944 did, however, extend the arrangement by reducing to percentages the degree of influence each would have in the Balkans. Our embassies in Moscow and Ankara informed us that the Soviet Union would have 75/25 or 80/20 predominance in Bulgaria, Hungary, and Romania; Britain and Russia would share influence in Yugoslavia 50/50; and the British would have full responsibility in Greece.

This Russian-British agreement made it evident that the United States could no longer adhere to the position it had adopted on the eve of Pearl Harbor. Agreements regarding Europe’s post-war problems would have to be worked out at a conference of the three leaders. We specifically desired a pledge by the Soviet Union and Great Britain that in liberated Europe free elections would be held and governments representative of the people would be established.

This was only one of many immediate problems which required an effort to reach agreement at the end of 1944. It was President Roosevelt’s belief, and he expressed it to me many times, that if he and the Prime Minister could sit around a conference table again with Marshal Stalin, not only would the war be brought to a speedier conclusion, but plans could also be laid to solve these problems and to create the basis for an enduring peace. Plans for this enduring peace, to be sought through a world organization after the war, had been worked on for years by the State Department. President Roosevelt contributed greatly to this effort by his speech on January 6, 1941, advocating a world based on the Four Freedoms—freedom of speech and expression, freedom to worship God, freedom from want, and freedom from fear.

Then in August 1941 the President and Prime Minister Churchill, when they met aboard a battleship for the Argentia Conference, outlined in the Atlantic Charter a more specific declaration of principles. On January 1, 1942, while Churchill was in Washington, the nations then at war with the Axis signed the United Nations Declaration, which had originated in the State Department, and pledged themselves to construct a post-war system of peace and security.

In October 1943, Cordell Hull flew to Moscow, the first flight he had made in his seventy-two years, to win the support of the Soviet Union for a post-war organization of nations. It was partly because the Four-Power Declaration of October 30, 1943, was signed at Moscow that it became the subject of general rejoicing throughout the United States. Russia, too, had seemingly recognized the necessity of a world organization.

At Moscow the foreign ministers of Great Britain, the Soviet Union, and the United States not only pledged closer military co-operation for the future, but also agreed that it was essential in their own national interests and in the interests of all peace-loving nations to continue the present close collaboration and co-operation in the conduct of the war into the period following the end of hostilities....

They furthermore recognized the necessity of establishing at the earliest practicable date a general international organization, based on the principle of the sovereign equality of all peace-loving states, and open to membership by all such states, large and small, for the maintenance of international peace and security.

On his return from Moscow Mr. Hull told a joint session of Congress: "Of supreme importance is the fact that at the conference the whole spirit of international co-operation, now and after the war, was revitalized and given practical expression. The conference thus launched a forward movement which, I am firmly convinced, will steadily extend in scope and effectiveness. Within the framework of