He was dressed simply in a lightweight khaki uniform with red epaulets and red seams down the trousers, and he wore no decorations except a single red-ribboned gold star, the Order of the Hero of the Soviet, over the left breast pocket, which gave him a kind of understated authority. His small, squinty eyes were a strange yellow-gray and there were streaks of gray in his mustache and coarse hair. He was badly pockmarked, his color poor—he had what in high Soviet circles was known as “Kremlin complexion,” an unhealthy, indoor pallor made worse by a recent illness—and his very irregular teeth were darkly tobacco-stained. Truman had been told of his crippled left arm, the result of a childhood accident, but this was not especially noticeable. A chain smoker, Stalin held his cigarette in his right hand and gestured with his right hand only. He had unusually large, powerful-looking hands—hands as hard as his mind, Harry Hopkins once said.
Bohlen, who was standing by to translate for Truman, thought Stalin had aged greatly in just the few weeks since he and Hopkins had met with him in Moscow. Stalin moved slowly, stiffly, spoke little and in a very low tone. To Truman he seemed an old man, yet there was less than five years difference in their age. Born in abject poverty in Georgia in 1879, Stalin was the son of a semi-literate, drunken shoemaker and a doting mother who took in laundry. Initially, before turning revolutionary, he had studied for the priesthood.
Truman, in his freshly pressed double-breasted gray suit and two-toned summer shoes, looked a picture of vitality by contrast.
They sat in overstuffed chairs, flanked by Byrnes, Molotov, Bohlen, and Pavlov. Truman told Stalin he had been looking forward to their meeting for a long time. Stalin agreed solemnly that such personal contact was of great importance. In an effort to ease the tension, Byrnes asked Stalin about his habit of sleeping late. Stalin said only that the war had changed many of his habits. Truman tried an informal reference to Stalin as Uncle Joe, the nickname Roosevelt had used, but this too fell flat with the humorless Russian.
Truman said he hoped to deal with stalin as a friend. He was no diplomat, Truman went on. He would not beat around the bush. He usually said yes or no to questions after hearing all the argument. Only then did stalin appear pleased.
They talked briefly of the defeat of Germany, stalin saying he was sure Hitler was alive and in hiding somewhere in Spain or Argentina. Then, abruptly, and entirely on his own initiative, Stalin said that as they had agreed at Yalta, the Soviets would be ready to declare war on Japan and attack Manchuria by mid-August. He had already assured the Chinese that Russia Recognized Manchuria as part of China and that there would be no Soviet interference with internal political matters there.
Truman said he was extremely pleased. But Stalin, as if to be sure Truman understood, repeated that by the middle of August the Red Army would be in the war with Japan, “as agreed at Yalta,” to which Truman expressed his every confidence that the Soviets would keep their word.
At this point Harry Vaughan slipped into the room to ask Truman in a whisper if he was going to invite “these guys” to lunch.
What was on the menu Truman whispered. Liver and bacon, vaughan said. “If liver and bacon is good enough for us, it’s good enough for them,” Truman replied.
When he asked Stalin to stay, Stalin protested, saying it would be impossible. “You could if you wanted to,” Truman said. And Stalin stayed—for creamed spinach soup, liver and bacon, baked ham, Julienne potatoes, string beans, pumpernickel bread, jam, sliced fruit, mints, candy, cigars, which Stalin declined, and a California wine that he went out of his way to praise.
Truman thought the whole occasion went well, exactly because it was so spur of the moment and informal. He liked Stalin, he decided, “and I felt hopeful that we could reach an agreement satisfactory to the world and to ourselves,”
But Stalin nearly always made a good impression of foreigners. Churchill, who once called Russia “a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma,” and who warned both Roosevelt and Truman repeatedly of the Russian menace to Europe, confessed still to liking Stalin the man. Roosevelt had been convinced almost to the end that he could get along with “Uncle Joe.” “The truth is,” wrote Jimmy Byrnes, recalling Stalin’s performance at Yalta, “he is a very likeable person.” Joseph E. Davies, who had been ambassador to Russia briefly and would be at Truman’s side daily at the potsdam conference table, had said in a superficial and immensely popular book, Mission to Moscow, published in 1941, that Stalin was uncommonly wise and gentle. “A child would like to sit on his lap and a dog would sidle up to him,” wrote Davies. Even Eisenhower, after a visit to Moscow later that summer, would describe Stalin in much the same fashion, as “benign and fatherly.”
Truman, as he wrote, found Stalin to be polite, good-natured, businesslike, “honest—but smart as hell.” There had been not a hint of contention between them. The conference hadn’t even begun, yet already Truman had achieved his main objective, as he recorded triumphantly in his diary. “He’ll be in the Jap War on August 15. Fini Japs when that comes about…. I can deal with Stalin.”
That Stalin was also secretive to the point of imbalance, suspicious, deceitful, unspeakably cruel, that he ruled absolutely and by terror and secret police, that he was directly responsible for destroying millions of his own people and the enslavement of many millions more, was not so clearly understood by the outside world at this point as it would be later. Still, the evil of the man was no secret in 1945. In a February issue, published just before Yalta, Time magazine had noted that Stalin and his regime had deliberately caused the deaths by starvation of at least 3 million peasants and liquidated another 1 million Communists who opposed his policies. Facts are stubborn things, said the article, borrowing a line from Lenin, and these were the facts. Actually the facts were more horrible. Probably 5 million peasants had died; probably 10 million had been sent to forced labor camps. “I was remembering my friends,” the composer Shostakovich once remarked, “and all I saw was corpses, mountains of corpses.”
Stalin himself had told Churchill in 1942 that “ten millions” of peasants had been “dealt with.” At one point in 1940, during the Hitler-Stalin Pact, he had had many thousands of Polish officers murdered, in what became known as the Katyn Forest Massacre. In truth, “Uncle Joe” was one of the great mass murderers of all time, as much as Ivan the Terrible (his favorite czar), as much nearly as Adolf Hitler.
Yet, wrote Bohlen, “There was little in Stalin’s demeanor in the presence of foreigners that gave any clue of the real nature and character of the man.” Stalin had perfected a talent for disguise:
At Teheran, at Yalta, at Potsdam and during the ten days I saw him during the spring of 1945 with Hopkins, Stalin was exemplary in his behavior. He was patient, a good listener, always quite in his manner and in his expression. There were no signs of the harsh and brutal nature behind this mask….
The mask was the artifice of an accomplished actor and it rarely slipped. Once was at Teheran. Churchill had been arguing that a premature opening of a second front in France would result in an unjustified loss of tens of thousands of Allied soldiers. Stalin responded, “When one man dies it is a tragedy. When thousands die it’s statistics.”
Twenty years in politics had taught him a thing or two about people, Truman thought. He had only to look a man in the eye to know. “I was impressed by him,” he would write of Stalin, remembering this first meeting. “…What I most especially noticed were his eyes, his face, and his expression.”
With the lunch over and the opening session of the conference not scheduled to begin until five o’clock, Truman went upstairs in the “nightmare” house and took a nap.
III
The first of the plenary sessions of the Potsdam Conference, last of the wartime meetings of the Big Three, code-named “Terminal,” was held in the Cecilienhof Palace at Potsdam, the former summer residence of Crown Prince Wilhelm of Prussia, which had served more recently as a military hospital, first for the Germans, then the Russians. A sprawlin
g two-story, ivy-covered stone building in the neo-Tudor style, it looked very like a vast English country house, with gardens extending to the lake and an inner court where the Russians had planted a giant star of red geraniums.
The oak-paneled reception hall, a cavernous, dim space lit by heavy wrought-iron chandeliers, served as the conference room. The color scheme was dark red, black, and gold, and the effect rather foreboding, except for one immense window two stories tall looking onto the gardens and lake.
At the center of the room was a circular conference table 12 feet in diameter, covered in a burgundy cloth, and around it, evenly spaced, were fifteen chairs, five each for the three countries. The three chairs reserved for Churchill, Stalin, and Truman were immediately identifiable by their larger size and an incongruous pair of gilded cupids perched on the back of each. Additional chairs and several small desks were arranged in a larger circle behind, these for other members of the delegation, advisers and specialists, who would come and go as different topics arose.
To enter the room, the three leaders had their own separate doors, each of these heavily guarded by Russian soldiers. When everybody was assembled, the guards withdrew, the doors were closed.
Though wearing the same gray suit as earlier, Truman had put on a fresh white shirt and a bow tie. Churchill, like Stalin, was in a summer-weight khaki uniform and as they took their places, he lit up an eight-inch cigar. Stalin was carrying a briefcase, which he tossed onto the table, as if to say he was ready for business.
Truman sat with Byrnes and Leahy on his right, Bohlen and Davies on the left. In Churchill’s group now was Clement Attlee, Churchill’s Labor Party opponent in the general election, whom the prime minister had decided to include in the national interest, in the event that Attlee turned out to be his successor.
“Never in history has such an aggregation of victorious military force been represented at one conference,” wrote The New York Times; “never has there been a meeting which faced graver or more complex issues; and never have three mortal men borne so heavy a responsibility for the welfare of their peoples and mankind.”
No correspondents for the Times were present, however, nor any of the nearly two hundred other reporters who had made their way to Berlin to cover the story and were, as Churchill said, “in a state of furious indignation.” For the “lid was on” at Potsdam, “everything conducted behind a ring of bayonets,” as Stalin had insisted. Even the number of authorized people permitted in the room at any one time was strictly limited. Once when Byrnes’s secretary brought him some papers and had to wait a few minutes, two women from the Russian staff entered immediately and took chairs until she left.
The conference was officially called to order at 5:10 P.M. Stalin spoke first, saying that President Truman, as the only head of state present, should preside. Churchill seconded the proposal. Truman expressed his appreciation. Then, as in his first speech to Congress, he plunged directly into his prepared remarks, moving rapidly down an item-by-item order of business that he thought the conference should follow. He proposed the establishment of a Council of Foreign Ministers to make the necessary preparations for a peace conference. Immediately Stalin was dubious, questioning any participation by China in a European peace settlement. Truman submitted a draft on how the administration of Germany should be handled. Churchill said he had had no opportunity to examine it. Truman read a prepared statement on implementation of the Yalta Declaration, which pledged the three powers to assist the people of all liberated European countries to establish democratic governments through free election. He was wasting no time getting to the sorest of subjects. “Since the Yalta Conference,” he read, “the obligations assumed under this declaration have not been carried out.” Of particular concern were Romania, Bulgaria, and Greece. Again Churchill said he needed time to consider the document.
Truman moved quickly on, calling for a change in policy toward Italy. As soon as possible, Italy must be included in the United Nations. Churchill now protested and to make his point invoked the memory of Roosevelt. They were trying to deal with too many important matters too hastily, said Churchill. He reminded Truman that Italy had attacked Britain at the time France was going down, and that Roosevelt himself had called this a stab in the back. The British had fought the Italians for two years in Africa before American forces ever arrived.
Truman paused, as if brought up short by the mere mention of Roosevelt.
Speaking more slowly now, he said he appreciated the honor of having been made chairman of the meeting. He had come to the conference with certain trepidation, he said. He had to replace a man who was irreplaceable. He knew full well the goodwill and friendship Roosevelt had achieved with the prime minister and the Generalissimo, both for himself and for the United States, and he, Harry Truman, hoped he might merit the same friendship and goodwill as time went on. It was simply and well expressed and what he should have said at the start, and the atmosphere changed at once, as Churchill responded in fulsome, Churchillian fashion. Though no official verbatim record was being kept, Llewellyn Thompson, from the American Embassy in London, and Ben Cohen of Byrnes’s staff were both taking notes:
Churchill [recorded Thompson] said he should like to express on behalf of the British delegation his gratitude to the President for undertaking the Presidency of this momentous Conference and to thank him for presenting so clearly the views of the mighty republic which he heads. The warm and ineffaceable sentiments which they had for President Roosevelt they would renew with the man who had come forward at this historic moment and he wished to express to him his most cordial respect. He trusted that the bonds not only between their countries but also between them personally would increase. The more they came to grips with the world’s momentous problems the closer their association would become.
On behalf of the Russian delegation, said Stalin, he wished to say they “fully shared” the sentiments expressed by the prime minister.
It was a pattern that would prevail, Churchill rumbling on, Stalin being as direct and to-the-point as Truman.
Taking his turn now, his voice very low, Stalin spoke in short segments, leaving ample pauses between, as one practiced in working with an interpreter. He wished to discuss acquisition of the German Navy (which was then in British hands), German reparations, the question of trusteeships for the Soviet Union (by which he meant colonies), the future of Franco Spain, and the future of Poland.
Churchill agreed that the Polish question was foremost, but said the agenda for the next session should be left to the foreign ministers to decide (Eden, Byrnes, and Molotov). Stalin and Truman concurred.
“So tomorrow we will have prepared the points most agreeable,” said Churchill.
“All the same, we will not escape the disagreeable,” countered Stalin.
“We will feel our way up to them,” said Churchill, who was ready to stop for the day.
Stalin turned again to the question of including China in preparations for the peace conference. Churchill thought it a needless complication to bring in China. Perhaps the matter could be referred to the foreign ministers, suggested Stalin, playing Churchill’s game now. If the foreign secretaries decided to leave China out, said Truman, he had no objections.
“As all the questions are to be discussed by the foreign ministers, we shall have nothing to do,” observed Stalin, producing the first laughter at the table.
Churchill thought the foreign ministers ought to provide three or four points for discussion per day, “enough to keep us busy.”
Truman was on edge. This wasn’t at all what he had come for. “I don’t want to discuss,” he said, “I want to decide.”
“You want something in the bag each day,” Churchill responded, as if he were just now beginning to understand the new American President.
Yes, and next time he wished to begin at an earlier hour, Truman said.
“I will obey your orders,” responded Churchill, and at once Stalin stepped in, his eyes on Churchill.
“If you are in such an obedient mood today, Mr. Prime Minister, I should like to know whether you will share with us the German fleet?”
The fleet should either be shared or destroyed, exclaimed Churchill. Weapons of war were horrible things.
“Let’s divide it,” said Stalin. “If Mr. Churchill wishes, he can sink his share.”
The Foreign Secretary thought the prime minister’s performance had been pathetic. The “P.M.” was “woolly and verbose,” and too much under Stalin’s spell, noted Anthony Eden, and he let others know, which annoyed Truman, who took it as an act of disloyalty to Churchill. Alexander Cadogan, in a letter to his wife, said the P.M. simply talked too much, while Truman was admirably businesslike.
It had made presiding over the Senate seem tame, Truman wrote to Bess, clearly pleased with himself and with the comments of his staff.
The boys say I gave them an earful. I hope so. Admiral Leahy said he’d never seen an abler job and Byrnes and my fellows seemed to be walking on air. I was so scared I didn’t know whether things were going according to Hoyle or not. Anyway a start has been made and I’ve gotten what I came for—Stalin goes to war August 15 with no strings on it…. I’ll say that we’ll end the war a year sooner now, and think of the kids who won’t be killed! That is the important thing….
Wish you and Margie were here. But it is a forlorn place and would only make you sad.
The letter was written early on July 18 before the day began. To his mother and sister he wrote, “Churchill talks all the time and Stalin just grunts but you know what he means.”
Mamma and Mary Jane had already written six times since he left Washington and he would keep them posted through the entire conference. This morning he had news he knew they would like. Sergeant Harry Truman, Vivian’s oldest son, had joined him for breakfast.
David McCullough Library E-book Box Set Page 467