Roosevelt had undergone a profound change in outlook. Stalin was not a man of his word, he confided to Anne O’Hare McCormick of The New York Times before leaving for Warm Springs.
Still, he had refused to give up trying to work with the Russians. In a last message to Stalin sent the day of his death, Roosevelt said that in the future there must be no more mistrust between them, no more such “minor misunderstandings” as over the German surrender issue. (Before passing the message along to Stalin, Harriman had urged the deletion of the word “minor,” but Roosevelt refused.) To Churchill that same day he wrote: “I would minimize the general Soviet problem as much as possible, because these problems, in one form or another, seem to arise every day, and most of them straighten out….” He added only: “We must be firm, however, and our course thus far is correct.”
Harriman told Truman that Russian control in Poland or Romania meant not just influence over foreign policy, but use of secret police and an end to freedom of speech. What they were faced with, Harriman said, using a phrase Truman would not forget, was a “barbarian invasion” of Europe.
American policy must be reconsidered. Any illusion that the Soviet Union was likely to act in accordance with the accepted principles in international affairs should be abandoned. He was not pessimistic, Harriman insisted. He believed workable relations with Russia were possible, with concessions on both sides.
Truman said he understood that 100 percent cooperation from Stalin was unattainable. He would be happy with 85 percent.
Molotov was due in Washington in two days. Truman said that if the Polish issue were not settled as agreed at Yalta, then the Senate would very likely reject American participation in the United Nations, and that he would tell this to Molotov “in words of one syllable.”
Harriman told the President how relieved he was “that we see eye to eye.”
On a first inspection tour of the private quarters at the White House, their future home, Bess and Margaret were crestfallen. “The White House upstairs is a mess…I was so depressed,” wrote Margaret. The Roosevelts had lived comfortably among possessions shabby and fine, old, new, ordinary, and sentimental, with little concern for color harmony or ever any attempt at show. They had lived as they had at home, like an old-fashioned country gentleman’s family of “comfortable circumstances.” Mrs. Roosevelt had left untouched the $50,000 allocated by Congress for upkeep and repair on the house. Her focus was on other concerns.
Carpets were threadbare. Walls looked as if they hadn’t been cleaned in years and were covered with lighter patches where pictures had hung. The scant remaining furniture was in sad disrepair. Some of the draperies had actually rotted. It looked like a ghost house, remembered the assistant head usher, J. B. West, who led the tour. Mrs. Roosevelt had told Bess she could expect to see rats.
The group that filed into the Oval Office for what was to be a landmark meeting at two o’clock the afternoon of Monday, April 23, was the same as Franklin Roosevelt would have assembled for the same purpose. There was no one from Truman’s old Senate staff, no new foreign policy adviser or Russian expert of Truman’s own choice, no Missouri “gang,” no one at all from Missouri but Truman. They were all Roosevelt’s people: Stettinius, Stimson, Forrestal, Marshall, King, Leahy, Harriman, Bohlen, Assistant Secretary of State James Dunn, and General John R. Deane, who was head of the Moscow military mission.
Molotov was expected shortly. He had arrived in Washington the day before, and he and Truman had already met briefly and quite amicably after dinner at Blair House, where Molotov, too, was staying. Truman had spoken of his admiration for the part Russia played in the war and told the Soviet minister he “stood squarely behind all commitments and agreements taken by our late President” and would do everything he could to follow that path. It had been Truman’s first encounter with a Russian and it had gone smoothly. But now Stettinius reported the Russians were insisting on their puppet government in Poland regardless of American opinion. Truman remarked that so far agreements with the Russians seemed always a one-way street. If the Russians did not want to cooperate, they could “go to hell.”
Asking for opinions, he turned first to the elderly Henry Stimson, who thought it extremely unfortunate the Polish issue had ever come to such a head. It seemed unnecessary, too hurried, too dangerous. Stimson was greatly alarmed, “for fear we are rushing into a situation where we would find ourselves breaking our relations with Russia….” The United States must be very careful, try to resolve things without a “headlong collision.”
Forrestal strongly disagreed. The situation in Poland was not an isolated example. The Russians were moving in on Bulgaria, Romania. Better to have a showdown now than later, he said. The real issue, added Harriman, was whether the United States would be party to a program of Soviet domination in Poland.
Admiral Leahy, from his experience at Yalta, was sure the Russians would never allow free elections in Poland, and warned that a break with the Soviet Union over Poland could be a “serious matter.”
Truman broke in to say he had no intention of issuing an ultimatum to Molotov. He wanted only to be firm and clear.
Stimson interjected that in their concern about Eastern Europe, the Russians “perhaps were being more realistic than we in regard to their own security.”
From his experience in Moscow, said General Deane, any sign of fear on the part of the United States would lead nowhere with the Russians.
Agreeing with Stimson, General Marshall urged caution. His great concern, Marshall said, was that Russia might delay participation in the war against Japan “until we have done all the dirty work.”
Stimson found himself feeling pity for Truman, as he wrote later in his diary:
I am very sorry for the President because he is new on his job and he has been brought into a situation which ought not to have been allowed to come this way. I think the meeting at Yalta was primarily responsible for it because it dealt a good deal in altruism and idealism instead of stark realities on which Russia is strong….
As the meeting ended, it was clear the tone of American dealings with Russia would now take a different turn. Truman remarked that he would follow the advice of the majority.
“Indeed, he did,” remembered Bohlen.
A survivor of revolutions, Siberia, purges, and war, Vyacheslav Molotov was one of the few original Bolsheviks still in power in the Soviet Union, his importance second only to that of Stalin. Molotov was tough and extremely deliberate in manner, with never a sign of emotion, not a hint of human frailty except for a stutter. In his customary dark blue European suit, with his pince-nez and small mustache, he looked like a rather smug English schoolmaster.
Molotov arrived at the President’s office promptly at 5:30, accompanied by his interpreter, V. N. Pavlov, and the Russian ambassador, Andrei Gromyko. With Bohlen serving as his interpreter, Truman came directly to the point. He wanted progress on the Polish question, he said. The United States would recognize no government in Poland that failed to provide free elections. He intended to go ahead with the United Nations, irrespective of differences over “other matters,” and he hoped that Moscow would bear in mind how greatly American foreign policy depended on public support, and that American economic assistance programs after the war would require the vote of Congress.
Molotov said the only acceptable basis for Allied cooperation was for the three governments to treat one another as equals. The Poles had been working against the Red Army, he insisted. Truman cut him short. He was not interested in propaganda, Truman said. He wished Molotov to inform Stalin of his concern over the failure of the Soviet government to live up to its agreements.
According to Bohlen’s later account, Molotov turned “ashy” and tried to divert the conversation. Truman said he wanted friendship with Russia, but Poland was the sore point. The United States was prepared to carry out all agreements reached at Yalta. He asked only that the Soviet government do the same.
In Truman’s recollection
of the scene, Molotov responded, “I have never been talked to like that in my life.”
“Carry out your agreements,” Truman told him, “and you won’t get talked to like that.”
By Bohlen’s account, however, this last exchange never happened. Truman just cut the conversation off, saying curtly, “That will be all, Mr. Molotov. I would appreciate it if you would transmit my views to Marshal Stalin.” Thus dismissed, Molotov turned and left the room.
But whichever way the meeting ended, there had been no mistaking Truman’s tone. Even Harriman admitted to being “a little taken aback…when the President attacked Molotov so vigorously.” In retrospect, Harriman would regret that Truman “went at it” quite so hard. “I think it was a mistake….”
Bohlen, for his part, thought Truman had said only about what Roosevelt would have in the same situation, except that of course Roosevelt would have been “smoother.” The difference was in style.
When word of what happened reached Capitol Hill, Arthur Vandenberg called it the best news he had heard in a long time.
Stimson was gravely worried. There was more the President needed to know. “I think it is very important that I should have a talk with you as soon as possible on a highly secret matter,” he wrote in a hurried letter to Truman.
I mentioned it to you shortly after you took office but have not urged it since on account of the pressure you have been under. It, however, has a bearing on our present foreign relations and has such an important effect upon all my thinking in this field that I think you ought to know about it without much further delay.
At noon, Wednesday, April 25, Truman’s twelfth day in office, the day after Molotov’s visit and the same day as the opening of the United Nations Conference in San Francisco, Stimson again went to the White House, but this time alone. General Leslie R. Groves, head of the Manhattan Project, or S-1 as Stimson preferred to call it, was brought in a little later through a side door and by way of the ground floor, to avoid being seen, and asked to wait in a room adjoining the President’s office. General Marshall stayed away entirely, so great was their concern over rousing curiosity among the press.
The war and a lifetime of service to his country had taken a toll on Stimson. On doctor’s advice he was now going home for an afternoon nap whenever possible. The first President he had known was Theodore Roosevelt, who made him an assistant U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York in 1905, at the time Truman was clerking in the Union National Bank. When Truman was learning about life on the farm, Stimson had become Secretary of War under William Howard Taft. Coolidge appointed him governor-general of the Philippines. Hoover made him Secretary of State. By the time Franklin Roosevelt made him Secretary of War again in 1940, Stimson was an elder statesman of seventy-two.
A graduate of Yale and the Harvard Law School, a lifelong Republican, Stimson was widely and correctly seen as a figure of thorough rectitude, if a bit old-fashioned and austere. He spoke with a faintly scratchy old man’s voice, wore a heavy gold watch chain across his vest, and parted his hair in the middle, the bangs combed forward over the forehead, a style that had disappeared with wing collars. He was also one of the few men ever to admonish Franklin Roosevelt to his face. “Mr. President, I don’t like you to dissemble to me,” Stimson had once lectured, shaking a crooked, arthritic finger.
Reflecting on Stimson a few years later, Truman would describe him as “a real man—honest, straightforward and a statesman sure enough.” Like Truman he had no patience with hypocrisy or circumlocution. Like Truman he was extremely proud of his service in the field artillery in France in 1918 and preferred still to be called “Colonel Stimson.”
He had first learned of S-1 in November of 1941, when named by Roosevelt to a committee to advise the President on all questions relating to nuclear fission. Since then, he had overseen every stage of development.
He and Truman were alone in Truman’s office. Stimson took from his briefcase a typewritten memorandum of several pages and waited while Truman read it. The words were Stimson’s own and the first sentence especially was intended to shock. Stimson had finished writing it only that morning.
Within four months we shall in all probability have completed the most terrible weapon ever known in human history, one bomb of which could destroy a whole city.
Although the United States and Great Britain had shared in the development of this “most terrible weapon,” at present only the United States had the capability of producing it. Such a monopoly could not last, however, and “probably the only nation which could enter production within the next few years is Russia.”
Stimson was anything but sanguine. Considering the state of “moral advancement” in the world, “modern civilization might be completely destroyed.”
When Truman finished reading, General Groves was shown in to present another report of some twenty-five pages on the status of the Manhattan Project, which Truman was again asked to read.
The President took one copy [Stimson wrote] and we took the other and we went over it and answered his questions and told him all about the process and about the problems that are coming up and in fact I think it very much interested him…. He remembered the time when I refused to let him go into this project when he was the chairman of the Truman Committee…and he said that he understood now perfectly why it was inadvisable for me to have taken any other course than I had….
Stimson, said Truman later, seemed as concerned with the role of the atomic bomb in shaping history as in its capacity to shorten the war. Stimson asked for authorization to establish a special select committee to study the implications of “this new force” and to advise Truman—to help him in his decision. Truman told him to go ahead.
What questions Truman had asked, neither Stimson nor Groves later said, but in a memorandum for his files, Groves noted: “The President did not show any concern over the amount of the funds being spent but made it very definite that he was in entire agreement with the necessity for the project.” Also, according to Groves, Truman had bogged down several times while reading the longer report, saying he didn’t like to tackle so much all at once. Groves and Stimson replied there was no way they could be more concise. “This is a big project,” Groves told the President.
In fact, S-1 was the largest scientific-industrial undertaking in history, and the most important and best-kept secret of the war. Overall responsibility had been given to the Army Corps of Engineers, with Groves, who had overseen the building of the Pentagon, in charge. It had been launched out of fear that the Nazis were at work on the same thing, which they were, though with nothing like the seriousness or success that were imagined. In less than three years the United States had spent $2 billion, which was not the least of the hidden truths, and, one way or other, 200,000 people had been involved, only a few having more than a vague idea of what it was about. That the diligent chairman of the Truman Committee had known so little was a clear measure of how extremely effective security had been. But then neither did General MacArthur or Admiral Chester A. Nimitz or a host of others in high command know what was going on.
While the United States and Great Britain shared in the secret and technical-scientific details, it was in all practicality an American project—initiated, supervised, financed, and commanded from Washington. Ultimately it was Franklin Roosevelt’s project, his decision, his venture. Without his personal interest and backing it would never have been given such priority. For Truman it was thus another part of the Roosevelt legacy to contend with and again Roosevelt was of little help to him. Roosevelt had left behind no policy in writing other than a brief agreement signed with Churchill at Hyde Park the previous autumn saying only that once the new weapon was ready, “It might perhaps, after mature consideration, be used against the Japanese, who should be warned that this bombardment will be repeated until they surrender.”
Whether the bomb would work, no one could say for certain. According to Groves, a first test would not be ready until early July.
The Washington Star needed to know what the President ate for breakfast (orange juice, cereal—usually oatmeal—toast, and milk, no coffee). Madame Tussaud’s Wax Museum in London wrote for the President’s exact measurements, requesting that the information be transmitted as soon as possible, and his office obliged: Height—5′9″, chest measurement—42½, waist measurement—35½, size of shoes—9B, size of collar—15½, size of gloves—8, size of hat—7 3/8;.
He addressed the United Nations conference by radio hookup. A poor speech, it was full of windy, mostly meaningless pronouncements of exactly the kind Truman disliked and would never normally use. “None of us doubt,” he said, “that with Divine guidance, friendly cooperation, and hard work, we shall find an adequate answer to the problem history has put before us.” As I. F. Stone observed in The Nation, what Truman would normally have said was, “It’s a tough job. I’m not sure we can do it. But we’re going to try our best.”
On the afternoon of April 25, he went to the Pentagon to talk to Churchill by the transatlantic “secret phone.” There had been a secret German offer to negotiate, a peace feeler from Heinrich Himmler, received through Count Folke Bernadotte, head of the Swedish Red Cross. Himmler wanted to capitulate, but only to the Western Allies, not to the Russians. Obviously the Nazis would have to surrender to all the Allies simultaneously, Churchill said. “That is right. That is exactly the way I feel…. I agree to that fully,” Truman responded. He would cable his news to Stalin at once.
Taking time out for his own first look at the White House living quarters, Truman moved through room after room “at a brisk trot,” according to the assistant head usher J. B. West, for whom this was a first chance for a close-up look at the President. West was struck by how large Truman’s glasses made his eyes appear. “I had the feeling he was looking at me, all around me, straight through me.”
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