The Accidental President

by A. J. Baime

  ///

  Truman dined at 8 p.m. that night in his villa, with Ambassador Harriman and Joseph Davies among others. A band from the Second Armored Division played a concert during the dinner. As coffee was being served, one of Truman’s aides approached to inform him that the secretary of war and General Marshall were on their way to the Little White House to discuss an important matter. Stimson and Marshall arrived soon afterward to find Truman in his office on the second floor. Jimmy Byrnes was also present. Stimson gave Truman a cable, which had arrived from George L. Harrison in Washington. It read:

  Operated on this morning. Diagnosis not yet complete but results seem satisfactory and already exceed expectations. Local press release necessary as interest extends great distance. Dr. Groves pleased. He returns tomorrow. I will keep you posted.

  Truman and Byrnes “were delighted” by the news, Stimson recorded in his diary. The scientists had pulled it off. This was the news they had been waiting for, what must have felt like the answer to every question. The bomb was now in Truman’s proverbial hands, which made the former farmer and haberdasher the most powerful man who had ever lived.

  The sentence regarding “local press release” signified that the Trinity shot had been so loud, citizens living great distances away had heard the blast and had contacted authorities, and so the army had put out a faux press release to throw off any suspicion. The press release indicated that an unexpected explosion had occurred at the Alamogordo Army Air Base, and that there had been “no loss of life.”

  Conversation in the Little White House turned to Japan as the secretary of war had more news. Stimson said that a peace feeler had apparently come from Tokyo, to representatives of Stalin’s government in Moscow. There was no evidence that the feeler had any substance, but it was encouraging news. Earlier on this day, Stimson had written a memorandum to Truman called “The Conduct of the War with Japan,” and it is highly likely that he handed Truman this document during this sit-down. It concerned the ultimatum that Stimson had discussed with the president—a warning to Japan that something deeply destructive was about to happen, in hopes that Japan would surrender.

  “It seems to me that we are at the psychological moment to commence our warnings to Japan,” Stimson wrote. “Moreover, the recent news of attempted approaches on the part of Japan to Russia, impels me to urge prompt delivery of our warning. I would therefore urge that we formulate a warning to Japan to be delivered during the course of this Conference.” If the Japanese then refused to surrender, Stimson concluded, “the full force of our newer weapons should be brought to bear.”

  Stimson also brought up Russia. The closer Truman moved toward the negotiating table at Potsdam, the more Stimson feared the Soviets’ intentions in the Far East. He worried that Stalin aimed to do in the Far East what he was doing in eastern Europe—extend the influence of the USSR and communism. Stimson argued that, in negotiations, the United States should prevent the Soviets from gaining full control of trade ports in the Far East, such as Dairen in Manchuria. He also feared new developments in Korea, and the following sentence presaged a whole new war that would begin before the Truman administration was over: “The Russians, I am also informed, have already trained one or two divisions of Koreans,” Stimson wrote. He worried that the Russians would use these military divisions to “influence the setting up of a Soviet dominated local government [in Korea].”

  Korea, Stimson concluded, “is the Polish question transplanted to the Far East.”

  Following this meeting, Truman bounded down the stairs of the Little White House in a conflicted mood. On the first floor, Joseph Davies was still lounging, post-dinner.

  “Is everything all right?” Davies asked.

  “Yes, fine!” Truman said.

  “Over here or back home?”

  “Back home. It has taken a great load off my mind.” Only later would Truman tell Davies what he was talking about—Trinity, calling it a “terrible success.”

  ///

  At noon on July 17, one day after the Trinity shot, a bulletproof limousine pulled up to the Little White House in Babelsberg. It was surrounded by scurrying groups of cold-faced men, wearing ties and bearing guns. The limousine had curtains, so no one could see who was inside. When the car door opened, Stalin appeared. The Man of Steel wore a military tunic, and he was flanked by Molotov and the translator Pavlov. The group was shown into the Little White House, where Truman was sitting behind an oversized wooden desk near a sun-brightened window. “I got to my feet and advanced to meet him,” Truman wrote in his diary. “He put out his hand and smiled.”

  Joseph Stalin was the most mysterious man alive. Few Americans had ever laid eyes on him. None knew where he lived, or with whom, or what his passions were, if any, outside of power politics. It was known, however, that he was born into abject poverty in the province of Georgia, and that he had risen to power during the struggles of the communist revolution, a time when only the most Machiavellian of militants could have survived, let alone flourished. He had taken over the Communist Party in 1922, and this was the foundation of his dictatorship. It was no coincidence that almost all of the powerful Soviets who had risen alongside Stalin—that is, any potential rivals—had since been assassinated, deported, tried, and executed for political crimes, or had simply vanished off the face of the earth. Stalin, meanwhile, had ushered the Soviet Union into the industrial age, as the feared dictator of what was now some 190 million subjects.

  Truman was surprised by Stalin’s diminutive stature. The sixty-six-year-old Soviet stood only about five feet five inches. His trimmed gray hair was brushed back from his bulging brow, which accentuated his eyes—yellow, as if stained by cigarette smoke. His skin was rugged and pockmarked, and his teeth were cracked and discolored. He wore a mustache gently pointed at the ends, and his smile was remarkably unassuming. Truman was told that Stalin had a deformed arm, but the president saw no evidence of it in person. “What I noticed especially,” Truman recorded, “were his eyes, his face, and his expression.”

  The Russia expert George Kennan, who had spent time with Stalin over the years while working in the Moscow embassy (where he still worked), described the sensation of being in the Soviet’s presence: “An unforewarned visitor would never have guessed what depths of calculation, ambition, love of power, jealousy, cruelty, and sly vindictiveness lurked behind this unpretentious façade. I was never in doubt, when visiting him, that I was in the presence of one of the world’s most remarkable men—a man great, if you will, primarily in his iniquity: ruthless, cynical, cunning, endlessly dangerous; but for all of this—one of the truly great men of the age.”

  Stalin apologized for showing up a day late, as his doctor had insisted he travel by train, rather than by air. Truman and Stalin then dove into the agenda for Potsdam. Truman noticed how Stalin looked him directly in the eye when he spoke, and the president spoke “straight from the shoulder,” as he put it. Interpreter Chip Bohlen sat by taking notes. Bohlen scribbled the following:

  TRUMAN: “I am here to—be yr friend—deal directly yes . . .”

  STALIN: “Good—help—work—USSR go along with US.”

  The conversation turned to the complicated issue of China. Stalin revealed that negotiations with Chinese foreign minister T. V. Soong in Moscow had moved along with little success. These negotiations involved the secret Yalta agreements, the willingness of the Chinese to grant the Soviets access to ports and control of Chinese railroads. The Chinese refused to agree to all the terms. The trouble with the Chinese, Stalin claimed, is that they “don’t understand horse trading.” But the talks were ongoing, and Stalin had decided to join the war against Japan anyway, he told the president, fixing the date now at August 15.

  Truman had come to Potsdam with many goals, but “the most urgent, to my mind,” he later wrote, “was to get from Stalin a personal reaffirmation of Russia’s entry into the war against Japan, a matter which our military chiefs were most anxious to clinch.” Truman ha
d accomplished this goal before the first conference plenary session had begun. He wrote in his diary: “Most of the big points are settled. He’ll [Stalin] be in the Jap War on August 15th. Fini Japs when that comes about.”

  Truman suggested that Stalin and his party stay for lunch. Stalin replied that he could not, but Truman pressed him. “You could if you wanted to,” he said.

  It was agreed. Colonel Rigdon, in charge of serving lunch, dashed into the kitchen, where Truman’s mess staff was working. There was no time to find more opulent fare. Rigdon later recalled, “All I could do was increase the quantities of liver and bacon that I had planned to serve as the main course, and of side dishes.”

  Lunch was served at 1:40 p.m. Stalin revealed at the table that he did not believe Adolf Hitler was dead. “I think he’s loose somewhere,” Stalin said—maybe in Argentina or Spain. Stalin praised the wine on the table, so bottles were brought out for his inspection; the wine was from California. Truman later presented a number of bottles to Stalin as a gift. After lunch, the group moved onto a porch for photographs—the leaders posed with smiles on their faces, like old friends—and then the Soviets departed.

  That afternoon the president prepared himself for the first plenary meeting at Potsdam. One can only imagine the thoughts moving through his mind as he dressed in his rooms, donning a dark gray double-breasted suit, a white shirt, and a bow tie. He had come to some conclusions about Stalin already. As he wrote in his diary on this day: “I can deal with Stalin. He is honest—but smart as hell.”

  At 4:40 p.m. Truman left the Little White House with his staff in a motorcade—MPs on motorcycles, secret service in jeeps, with flags flying and sirens blaring. The palace where the conference was to be held was called Cecilienhof, and it was a ten-minute drive. At a gatehouse manned by Russian soldiers, the flags of the three nations flew in the breeze—the Stars and Stripes, the Union Jack, the Hammer and Sickle. When the big iron gate opened, Truman’s motorcade moved through winding tree-lined roads manned by green-capped Red Army soldiers with bayoneted rifles. The palace then revealed itself—three stories with a high red tiled roof, with an arch in the center leading into a courtyard, where the main entrances were situated. The palace had been completed in 1917 and contained 176 rooms. Inside the courtyard the Russians had planted a large red star, made out of geraniums. The red flowered star “strikingly informs all that the Russians are the conference host,” recorded one of Truman’s bodyguards, escorting him on this day.

  Each nation’s delegation had its own entrance into the palace. Truman and his party walked through their own door, down long hallways to a dark-wood-paneled conference room with high ceilings and a large grid of windows that allowed natural light to flood the room. In the center was a round table surrounded by chairs, with miniature flags of the three nations at the center. There was no water or glasses on the table, but there were ashtrays aplenty. Both Stalin and Churchill and their parties had arrived before Truman. At 5 p.m. the parties assembled and posed for photographs and newsreel cameras. Joseph Davies recalled walking into the conference room with Truman: “As we entered, we were almost blinded by a battery of klieg lights and moving picture cameras. Very shortly thereafter, however, the business was ‘on.’”

  Fifteen men sat at the negotiating table, five from each nation, and the rest of the advisors sat ringed around them. This table felt familiar to Truman, for it had the aura of a great big poker table. He eyed his opponents. He knew that they hoped to take advantage of him, the inexperienced one, who had been an obscure county judge just ten years earlier, and whose rise seemed still inexplicable. The Big Three leaders had come together to map out the future, but their interests were not the same. At 5:10 p.m., here in this palace—“only a few miles from the war-shattered seat of Nazi power,” as Truman put it—the historic Potsdam Conference was called to order.

  Part V

  * * *

  Little Boy, Fat Man and Potsdam

  He had tremendous native courage. He had, what really gets down to the word, “guts.” He had no fear of anything. He had a tremendous sense of patriotism and an awe of the Presidency.

  —Robert Nixon, journalist at Potsdam, on Harry Truman

  My God, what have we done.

  —Enola Gay copilot Robert A. Lewis, while staring down at the Hiroshima mushroom cloud

  33

  “WHO IS TO BE THE CHAIRMAN at our conference?” Churchill asked.

  The Russian interpreter Pavlov translated Churchill’s question for Stalin, who responded, “I propose President Truman of the United States.”

  Churchill: “The British delegation supports this proposal.”

  Truman said, “I accept the chairmanship of this Conference.”

  Potsdam’s first agreement was made. The negotiations would never be that easy again. Perhaps Truman did not realize that Stalin had already begun his careful manipulation. Stalin would never offer anything—not even simple graciousness—without asking for something in return, further on down the line.

  Sitting at the table from the United States: Truman, with Secretary Byrnes and Admiral Leahy on his right, interpreter Chip Bohlen on his left, and former Moscow ambassador Joseph Davies on the other side of Bohlen. In the background: Ambassador Harriman and various members of the State Department. (The Chiefs of Staff had come to Potsdam, but as military men, they were not in the negotiating chamber.)

  From Britain: Prime Minister Churchill, Churchill’s election opponent, Clement Attlee of the Labour Party, and Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden, among others.

  From the Soviet Union: Generalissimo Stalin, with Molotov on his right, and the translator Pavlov on his left. Also: the fierce negotiator Andrey Vyshinsky—who had served as Stalin’s legal mastermind during the Great Purge trials of the 1930s—and the nearly as cunning foreign minister, Andrei Gromyko.

  Much of this first meeting was devoted to procedure. Truman had come prepared, and he launched forward with his first point. “One of the most acute problems at present is to set up some kind of mechanism for arranging peace talks,” he said. “Without it, Europe’s economic development will continue to the detriment of the cause of the Allies and the whole world.” He recommended the establishment of a council of foreign ministers from Britain, the United States, the USSR, France, and China. “That is,” he said, “the permanent members of the Security Council of the United Nations set up at the San Francisco Conference.” This council, Truman said, should play the role of hammering out all the peace treaties for all the belligerents.

  As the room filled with smoke, an agenda for the conference began to take shape. The list of questions that needed addressing grew profoundly daunting: the future of Germany and the matter of German reparations, the Polish regime (still clearly Soviet-controlled), the role of China in the peace talks, and the complexity of Italy’s role in Europe. (Under Mussolini, Italy had fought with the Nazis at the cost of many Allied soldiers, but had been the first of the Axis to surrender and had recently declared war on Japan just three days earlier, in hopes of joining the UN.) All these issues formed what Churchill called “the tangled problems of Europe—the volcano from which war springs.”

  Truman’s personality emerged early. He wanted efficient talks. He wanted the agenda for the next day’s discussions set before today’s were over. “I don’t want just to discuss,” he said, “I want to decide.” He wanted the talks to begin at 4 p.m. instead of 5. He also took a moment to voice what everyone in the room was thinking: “I am well aware that I am now substituting for a man whom it is impossible to substitute, the late President Roosevelt. I am glad to serve, even if partially, the memory which you preserve of President Roosevelt.”

  Before the first meeting was over, the first conflict arose, an omen of what was to come. This fray was over German warships, which were in British possession.

  “There is only one other question,” Stalin said, as the session neared its end. “Why does Mr. Churchill deny the Russians their share of
the German navy?”

  “I have no objections,” said Churchill. “But since you have asked me this question, here is my answer: This navy should be either sunk or divided.”

  “Do you want it sunk or divided?” asked Stalin.

  “All means of war are terrible things,” said Churchill, avoiding the question.

  “The navy should be divided,” said Stalin. “If Mr. Churchill prefers to sink the navy, he is free to sink his share of it. I have no intention of sinking mine.”

  “At present, nearly the whole of the German navy is in our hands,” said Churchill.

  “That’s the whole point,” Stalin came back. “That’s the whole point. That is why we need to decide the question.”

  Truman ended the session here before any decision on the German fleet was made, after one hour and forty-five minutes of sparring. “Tomorrow,” he said, “the sitting is at four o’clock.”

  With the meeting adjourned, the delegations funneled to an adjoining room where the hosts had prepared an elaborate buffet. As Truman was soon to learn, this was the Russian way of doing things. “The table was set with everything you could think of,” he recalled. Goose liver, caviar, every kind of meat one could imagine, along with cheeses of different shapes and colors, and endless wine and vodka.

  Minutes after 7 p.m., Truman left the palace in his motorcade. At a checkpoint along the road back to the Little White House, Russian soldiers stopped the president’s car for questioning, at which point a Russian lieutenant appeared and berated the soldiers for holding the American president up. Leahy leaned into Truman’s ear as the driver put the car in gear. “I’ll bet that lieutenant is shot in the morning,” he said.