The Lost Peace

by Robert Dallek

  Although Churchill was not “fully convinced that … there was no serious intent lurking behind,” he returned to the dinner. He undoubtedly could not forget the thousands of Polish officers who had been executed in the Katyn Forest, or Stalin’s revelation to him that he had ordered the shooting of captured working-class German soldiers who, when asked why they had fought for Hitler, said “they were executing orders.” It was later that evening that Churchill conveyed his anguished picture of the future to Lord Moran.

  Roosevelt left the meetings with a greater sense of hope, though less than confident that the future would see continuing good relations with Moscow. Eager to tamp down Stalin’s doubts about his allies’ ultimate goodwill, Roosevelt refused to hold private conversations with Churchill that might arouse Stalin’s suspicions of Anglo-American cooperation aimed against him. At every chance, he teased Churchill in front of Stalin as a way to suggest some distance between them. At a minimum, out of a concern to convince Americans that the future promised postwar Soviet-American harmony and a world receptive to an international role for the United States, Roosevelt told his secretary of labor, Frances Perkins, in the expectation that their discussion would leak to the press, that he and Stalin got along so well he called him “Uncle Joe.” Stalin “came over and shook my hand. From that time on our relations were personal…. The ice was broken and we talked like men and brothers.”

  Roosevelt urged Stalin, for the sake of American public opinion, to give the Baltic states of Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia a say in their postwar governance. He “jokingly” assured Stalin that he had no intention of going to war with the Soviet Union over Baltic self-determination, but explained that it would be a significant issue in the United States and that it would help him “personally” if Stalin at least made some reference to future elections expressing the will of the Baltic peoples.

  In a radio talk to the nation after returning from Tehran, the president expressed confidence that a Wilsonian world of self-determination and peaceful cooperation would emerge from the war. As for Stalin, he “got along fine with Marshal Stalin…. I believe that we are going to get along very well with him and the Russian people—very well indeed.”

  At a press conference, when a reporter asked for the president’s personal impressions of Stalin, he replied, “We had many excellent talks,” and predicted “excellent relations in the future.” When another journalist asked what type of man Stalin was, Roosevelt answered, “I would call him something like me … a realist.”

  Privately, Roosevelt was more skeptical. After they left Tehran, the president expressed doubts to Churchill about Stalin’s promise to declare war on Japan, and said it was a “ticklish” business keeping the “Russians cozy with us.” He called Soviet entrance into the fighting against Japan a matter of “nip and tuck.” As for Stalin’s commitment to a postwar world organization, Roosevelt told a senator that the Soviets shared Churchill’s affinity for a regional system of collective security. “I’ll have to work on both of them,” he said. Excessive American idealism or overdrawn ideas about a perfect world free of power politics worried FDR. The issue, he told his undersecretary of state, was “not whether the United States could make the world safe for democracy, but whether democracy could make the world safe from another war.”

  For Roosevelt, an essential requirement of postwar peace was America’s readiness to replace outdated isolationism with sustained involvements abroad. Achieving this goal was his highest priority. He believed that an economic safety net would be the country’s greatest concern, and he spoke to this fear in his January 1944 State of the Union message. He proposed an economic bill of rights that would guarantee everyone an education, a decent paying job, good housing, and adequate medical care. He saw U.S. internationalism and domestic economic security as the fulfillment of his foreign policy and domestic agendas. And this would mean running for yet another term. He was reluctant to do it. But having already broken the two-term tradition, he rationalized seeking another four years as less of a break with the past.

  A greater deterrent was his health. Although he was only 62 at the end of January, he was feeling the strains of eleven years as a crisis president and the consequences of twenty years of physical immobility caused by his paralysis. Continually tired by 1944, he also gave those closest to him pause by his gray appearance, hand and head tremors, and occasional periods of lost concentration. An examination at the Bethesda Naval Hospital showed disturbing evidence of the president’s physical deterioration—high blood pressure, an enlarged heart and indications of cardiac failure. The president’s obvious reluctance to be told anything about his condition persuaded his doctors to keep their concerns to themselves. Moreover, they believed that a regimen of less work, more exercise in a swimming pool, fewer cigarettes than his habitual pack a day, a low-salt, reduced calorie diet, and regular doses of digitalis could slow his deterioration and keep him in sufficiently good shape for another presidential term.

  Roosevelt dropped hints to people close to him that he was aware of his medical problems, and closely followed his doctors’ orders. He shared the belief with Democratic Party leaders that if he did not run, the Republicans were likely to take back the White House and reverse at least part of his New Deal and possibly return the country to isolationism. Although the eventual Republican nominee, Governor Thomas E. Dewey of New York, avowed a commitment to internationalism, he was a recent convert from isolationism; and Roosevelt did not trust that as president he would lead the United States into the United Nations. FDR told one of his sons that he was determined “to maintain a continuity of command in a time of crisis”—not only to assure the unconditional surrender of Germany and Japan, but also to guarantee that the United States would take a place in the new world organization to preserve the peace.

  Despite his health problems, Roosevelt managed to stay on top of events during 1944, including the D-day invasion in June, conferences with Churchill at Quebec and Hyde Park in September, and his fourth election to the White House in November. The demands of these developments took an additional toll on his health, as did his worries over worsening relations with Moscow. As Soviet armies advanced into Eastern Europe and victory over Germany became more likely, Stalin grew less cooperative. In August, he refused to allow British or American air forces hoping to drop supplies to the Polish underground fighting German forces in Warsaw to land on Soviet airfields. It was clear to Churchill and Roosevelt that Stalin, who denounced the Polish fighters as “a group of criminals,” wanted no part in helping a Polish force that might resist Soviet control of their country. As Stalin’s armies waited on the Vistula, Hitler’s troops decimated the Polish underground fighting them in Warsaw.

  In September, warnings from U.S. ambassador Averell Harriman in Moscow that the Soviets “have held up our requests with complete indifference to our interests and have shown an unwillingness even to discuss pressing problems” troubled Roosevelt. He shared Harriman’s belief that the Soviets were inclined to act as “a world bully wherever their interests are involved.” Stalin’s insistence on making all sixteen Soviet republics members of the United Nations and giving each of the six members of a security council an all-inclusive veto particularly upset Roosevelt. It was small wonder that he and Churchill reaffirmed their decision to withhold information about the atomic bomb from Stalin. Although doubts about permanently preventing Soviet acquisition of a bomb may have given them some pause, it seemed most prudent to keep at least some temporary advantage over Moscow that might help inhibit their postwar imperial ambitions. Still, for the sake of domestic opinion and out of hope that he might yet advance cooperation with the Soviets, Roosevelt looked forward to sitting down again with Stalin at another conference early in 1945.

  After Tehran, Churchill also worried about future relations with Moscow. As he traveled back to England, he put the best possible face on Russian occupation of the Baltic countries and Eastern Europe as their armies drove back the Germans. He told E
den that Moscow’s “tremendous victories … deep-seated changes … in the Russian State and Government [and] the new confidence which has grown in our hearts toward Stalin” made him more receptive to accommodation with Soviet territorial ambitions. But “most of all is the fact that the Russians may very soon be in physical possession of these territories, and it is absolutely certain that we should never attempt to turn them out.” While the Soviet victories had “very largely settled” the fate of the Baltic states, Churchill saw room to negotiate an honorable settlement for Poland.

  At the same time, however, he wanted no public acknowledgment of Soviet control of Estonia, Latvia, or Lithuania or discussions about Poland: it “might have disastrous effects in the United States in the election year, and there is no doubt that we should ourselves be subject to embarrassing attacks in the House of Commons if we decided the fate of the countries.” Churchill’s public line was that Stalin had abandoned the Comintern or Soviet encouragement of communism abroad and now was to be treated as a trusted ally.

  In conversations with Polish exile leaders in London, Churchill and Eden quoted Stalin as promising Poland freedom from Soviet interference in a choice of government. Yet Churchill reflected his real view of Soviet intentions toward Poland when he privately urged increased matériel for Polish forces: “Now that the Russians were advancing into Poland,” he said on February 3, 1944, “it was in our interest that Poland should be strong and well-supported. Were she weak and overrun by the advancing Soviet armies, the result might hold great dangers in the future for the English speaking peoples.” In March, when he found it impossible to work out an accommodation between the Polish exile government in London and Stalin, Churchill privately said that he would like to tell the Russians that “I fight tyranny whatever uniform it wears or slogan it utters.” In a glum mood, he told his intimates, “We live in a world of wolves—and bears.”

  During the rest of 1944, he remained on edge about Soviet intentions in eastern and southeastern Europe, where their armies were taking control. His trip to Moscow in October principally aimed to work out accommodations over the Balkan countries and Poland. He was greatly concerned that civil wars might break out in the Balkans, and he wrote Roosevelt, “Probably you and I would be in sympathy with one side and U J with the other.” Despite the percentages agreement for the Balkans, much back-and-forth with Stalin and the London Poles over Poland’s future boundaries, and a “most friendly” atmosphere during the Moscow conversations, Churchill still saw “many vexatious points to settle” and felt “powerless in the face of Russia.”

  For Stalin, 1944 was much less troublesome than for Roosevelt or Churchill. The year was notable for battlefield victories that lifted a siege around Leningrad, cleared the Crimea of German forces, recaptured most of the Baltic states, put Soviet armies on the outskirts of Warsaw, ousted Germany from Bulgaria and Rumania, and opened the way to the conquest of Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and east Prussia.

  The victories increased Stalin’s absolute control of the Soviet Union and made him less concerned about offending his allies. At home, he ruthlessly approved the relocation of 1.5 million ethnic minorities—the national aspirations of the Armenians, the Balkars, the Bulgarians, the Chechens, the Crimeans, the Ingush, the Kalmucks, and the Tatars, which had been encouraged during the earlier fighting to compete with German promises of independence, were now ruthlessly repressed as a danger to Soviet unity. About half a million of the ethnics sent to the east died in transport or the prison camps, where they lived in misery. Lavrenty Beria, the head of Stalin’s secret police and a principal facilitator of the ethnic cleansing, was known to have said, “When you stop murdering people by the millions, they start to get notions.” The killing and repression of these minorities stifled any hope they had for self-determination.

  Whatever the appearance of agreement with Churchill and Roosevelt on the Balkans and Poland, Stalin had no intention of conceding anything that might jeopardize Soviet interests. He wouldn’t, for example, give in to Allied pressure for his armies to battle their way into Warsaw and save Polish resistance fighters, who, Stalin believed, could become the leaders of an anti-Soviet government. The Poles perished in the streets and sewers of the city, where they were overwhelmed by superior Nazi arms.

  Reluctance, however, to do anything that might jeopardize the D-day invasion in June set limits on Soviet differences with their allies. Nor did Moscow wish to clash openly with London and Washington about Eastern Europe and discourage hopes that Stalin would be deferential to British and American pressure for self-determination. Stalin also worried that open tensions might jeopardize a multibillion-dollar reconstruction loan he hoped to receive from the United States. During the Moscow talks in October 1944 with Churchill and Eden, Stalin had gone out of his way to create a cooperative atmosphere that left Churchill believing that they might achieve realistic accommodations and a future without conflict between the Allies.

  All three leaders agreed at the end of 1944 on the need for another personal meeting that could address immediate designs for ending the war against Japan and postwar questions: issues about an international peacekeeping organization, the occupation of Germany, and the governance of southeastern and Eastern European countries, especially Poland, remained unsettled.

  Churchill confronted the closing months of the fighting with mixed feelings. He saw Stalin as gratifyingly restrained about a Communist uprising in Greece and as reluctant to become a party to any quarrel over Yugoslavia. Stalin’s agreement to a mid-January 1945 offensive in the East to help relieve pressure on Allied armies fighting the Battle of the Bulge in Belgium also pleased Churchill. He told the House of Commons on November 29, 1944, “The ‘united powers of the Grand Alliance’ were never more closely and intimately and comprehensively united than they are at this time.”

  To accommodate Stalin, who said his health would not allow him to leave his country, the seventy-year-old Churchill and the increasingly ill Roosevelt agreed to meet in Yalta on the Black Sea in the Crimea, a more-than-six-thousand-mile journey by sea and air for the frail president. Their agreement to the arduous journey was a demonstration of their regard for the sacrifices the Soviets had made in the fighting and of their eagerness to disarm Stalin’s suspicions that if he traveled outside the Soviet Union, he would be at some kind of disadvantage in conference discussions. What this would be, no one could say, but it would certainly make it more difficult to ensure his personal safety, which he believed was constantly in jeopardy. Yet whatever Stalin’s motives, it was a measure of the Churchill-Roosevelt determination in the closing months of the fighting to sustain good relations with Stalin that they were willing to suffer the inconvenience of so long a trip.

  Churchill told Hopkins that ten years of research could not have unearthed a worse place to meet. Retreating German troops had turned Yalta, Sevastopol, and the whole of the Crimea into a wasteland. Sarah Churchill, Winston’s daughter, who accompanied him to Yalta, wrote her mother that Sevastopol had “not a house in view standing or unbroken.” When Roosevelt saw the devastation wrought by the Germans, he told Stalin that he hoped he would propose another toast to the execution of fifty thousand German army officers. Churchill hoped to ward off the lice and typhus infecting the Crimea by bringing “an adequate supply of whiskey” with him. He described Yalta as “The Riviera of Hades.”

  Fears of postwar problems shadowed Churchill’s optimism. He cautioned Roosevelt against removing U.S. troops from Europe too rapidly after the fighting: with no French army to fill the vacuum, he wondered, “How will it be possible to hold down Western Germany beyond the present Russian occupation line?” He foresaw a rapid disintegration, as after 1919. He fretted over likely parliamentary resistance to the financial burdens of a postwar army that could contain Russian ambitions in Europe. He was cast down by Soviet obstinacy on Poland and the prospect of a powerful Soviet military presence in Central Europe.

  In January 1945, he privately despaired of this �
��new, disgusting year.” He told Roosevelt that the upcoming Yalta meeting “may well be a fateful Conference, coming at a moment when the Great Allies are so divided and the shadow of the war lengthens out before us. At the present time,” he wrote on January 8, “I think the end of this war may well prove to be more disappointing than was the last.”

  Roosevelt shared Churchill’s concerns. He also doubted that Stalin would relinquish his control over Eastern Europe. His stubborn insistence on meeting at Yalta impressed the president as an indication of how unbending Stalin would be in the talks. In a conversation with his secretary of war, Henry Stimson, in December, Roosevelt said that “Stalin had taken Britain’s desire to have a cordon sanitaire of friendly nations around it in past years as an excuse now … to have Czechoslovakia, Poland, and other nations whom it could control around it.” Stimson agreed and doubted the wisdom of sharing information about the atomic bomb with Stalin. He considered it “essential not to take them [the Soviets] into our confidence until we were sure to get a real quid pro quo from our frankness.” Roosevelt “thought he agreed.”

  When he discussed postwar Europe with a bipartisan group of U.S. senators before departing for Yalta, Roosevelt said that spheres of influence were a reality that he had no current hope of abolishing. The “idea kept coming up,” he explained, “because the occupying forces had the power in the areas where their arms were present and each knew that the other could not force things to an issue. He stated that the Russians had the power in Eastern Europe, that it was obviously impossible to have a break with them and that, therefore, the only practicable course was to use what influence we had to ameliorate the situation.”