The Definitive FDR

by James Macgregor Burns

  It was an ill-boding start for Roosevelt’s supreme aim at Yalta. To make things worse, the Soviet leaders were still requesting sixteen votes in the proposed Assembly. When Stettinius presented the detailed American proposals for the new organization at the third plenary session, Stalin was at his most surly and suspicious. He baited Churchill over the possibility that Egypt in the Assembly might demand the return of the Suez Canal. He implied broadly that the Anglo-Americans were ganging up on him. He said that his colleagues in Moscow could not forget how at the instigation of the French and British the League of Nations during the war with Finland had expelled the Soviet Union and isolated it and crusaded against it. Roosevelt sat through all this patiently, intervening only to insist that Big Three unity was the keystone to an international system.

  The next day Molotov suddenly shifted and declared Roosevelt’s voting proposals acceptable. Then almost in the same breath he mentioned the request at Dumbarton Oaks for sixteen seats for the Soviet republics. He would now be satisfied with the admission of three or even two of the republics—Ukrainian, White Russian, and Lithuanian. They had borne the greatest sacrifices of the war.

  Even while expressing his pleasure at the shift, Roosevelt recognized the dilemma he faced. “This is not so good!” he wrote on a chit to Stettinius. He had come to Yalta planning to reject the sixteen-seat request, a proposal that would offend both the idealists and the cynics at home. Now the Russians were reducing this to two extra votes, and accepting his voting plan for the world organization. It was the moment for a gesture on his part, but he feared accepting the two extra votes. For a while he kept talking in order to delay a showdown, until Hopkins noticed Stalin’s impatience—or was it annoyance?—at Roosevelt’s failure to reciprocate.

  During the next twenty-four hours Roosevelt was under heavy pressure from outside—and perhaps from inside himself—to endorse the two extra seats for the Soviet Union. The British, with an eye to their own empire and dominions, were siding with the Russians. Stettinius seemed sympathetic to the idea. Clearly any further delay or division might imperil the whole dream of a United Nations. If he moved now he might get the whole conference held by late April in the United States. At the next plenary meeting he endorsed the two extra votes, but only on the understanding that later the United Nations conference itself would grant the votes, with Big Three support.

  © Low, world copyright reserved, reprinted by permission of the Trustees of Sir David Low’s Estate and Lady Madeline Low

  Roosevelt’s concession disturbed Byrnes and Leahy. The war mobilizer reminded his chief how the opponents of the League of Nations had contended that London, because of the dominions, would have five votes in the League Assembly to Washington’s one. He and Flynn later persuaded the President to request British and Russian support for an extra two votes for the United States if needed. Churchill and Stalin both said they would agree to the request if made.

  The three leaders were in a mood of self-congratulation when they dined at Stalin’s Yusupov Palace a few hours after the initial agreement on extra seats. Stalin toasted Churchill as the bravest governmental figure in the world, as the leader of a nation that had stood alone against Germany at a time when the rest of the world was falling flat on its face before Hitler. Churchill saluted Stalin as the leader of the nation that had broken the back of the German war machine. Stalin then toasted Roosevelt as a man whose country had not been seriously threatened but who had had perhaps a better concept of national interest than any other leader, especially in supplying war aid. Roosevelt, in replying, said he felt the atmosphere of the dinner was that of a family, as were the relations among the three countries.

  Stalin was in an expansive, almost philosophical, mood. He was talking too much, like an old man, he said. “But I want to drink to our alliance.” It must not lose its character of intimacy and frankness.

  “In an alliance the allies should not deceive each other,” Stalin continued. “Perhaps that is naïve? Experienced diplomatists may say, ‘Why should I not deceive my ally?’ But I as a naïve man think it best not to deceive my ally even if he is a fool. Possibly our alliance is so firm just because we do not deceive each other; or is it because it is not so easy to deceive each other…?

  The bleak specter of Poland hung over the conference even as the men of Yalta celebrated the brave new world they were building. It had long been agreed by the Big Three that the war-racked nation would be picked up like a carpetbag and set down a few hundred miles to the west, satisfying Russia’s appetite, penalizing Germany’s, and, it was hoped, taming Poland’s. The product of cynical partition and hopeful re-creation, of Realpolitik and romanticism, Poland epitomized the ancient ways of princes even as it roiled and divided the three leaders.

  Roosevelt was under no illusion about Soviet plans for Poland. Stalin had recognized the Lublin Poles in the face of the President’s and the Prime Minister’s most urgent pleas for delay. As the conference met, the Red Army was completing Poland’s liberation—and occupation. The question was how much representation for non-Communist Polish elements could be extracted from a nation that controlled every precinct, viewed liberals and conservatives as bourgeois exploiters, if not fascists, and was absolutely determined to protect the Red Army’s rear and its own future frontiers.

  Roosevelt decided to be relatively flexible about Poland’s new borders—which in any event had been essentially determined by the Red Army’s advance and by understandings at Teheran and elsewhere—but to insist on a democratic, independent, and viable Polish government.

  “I should like to bring up Poland,” Roosevelt said at the third plenary meeting. “I come from a great distance and therefore have the advantage of a more distant point of view of the problem. There are six or seven million Poles in the United States.” As he had said at Teheran, he went on, in general he favored the Curzon Line. “Most Poles, like the Chinese, want to save face.”

  “Who will save face,” Stalin interrupted, “the Poles in Poland or the émigré Poles?”

  “The Poles would like East Prussia and part of Germany,” Roosevelt went on. “It would make it easier for me at home if the Soviet Government could give something to Poland.” He hoped that Marshal Stalin could make a gesture and give Poland Lwow and the adjacent oil lands. Stalin was silent.

  “But the most important matter is that of a permanent government for Poland. Opinion in the United States is against recognition of the Lublin government on the ground that it represents a small portion of the Polish people. What people want is the creation of a government of national unity to settle their internal differences. A government which would represent all five major parties”—Roosevelt named them—“is what is wanted. It may interest Marshal Stalin that I do not know any of the London or of the Lublin government. Mikolajczyk came to Washington and I was greatly impressed by him. I felt that he was an honest man….”

  Churchill backed the President. “I have made repeated declarations in Parliament in support of the Soviet claims to the Curzon line, that is to say, leaving Lvov with Soviet Russia. I have been much criticized and so has Mr. Eden by the party which I represent. But I have always considered that after all Russia has suffered in fighting Germany and after all her efforts in liberating Poland her claim is founded not on force but on right. In that position I abide. But of course if the mighty power, the Soviet Union, made a gesture of magnanimity to a much weaker power and made the gesture suggested by the President we would heartily acclaim such action.

  “However,” he continued, “I am more interested in the question of Poland’s sovereign independence and freedom than in particular frontier lines. I want the Poles to have a home in Europe and to be free to live their own lives there….This is what is dear to the hearts of the nation of Britain. This is what we went to war against Germany for—that Poland should be free and sovereign. Everyone here knows…that it nearly cost us our life as a nation.” He went on to plead for the establishment at the conference of
a new interim government of Poland pending free elections. “His Majesty’s Government cordially support the President’s suggestion and present the question to our Russian allies.”

  Stalin asked for a ten-minute intermission. He came back well primed.

  “The Prime Minister has said that for Great Britain the question of Poland is a question of honor. For Russia it is not only a question of honor but of security….During the last thirty years our German enemy has passed through this corridor twice. This is because Poland was weak. It is in the Russian interest as well as that of Poland that Poland be strong and powerful and in a position in her own and in our interests to shut the corridor by her own forces. The corridor cannot be mechanically shut from outside by Russia. It could be shut from inside only by Poland. It is necessary that Poland be free, independent and powerful….” Then Stalin turned to the Curzon Line and Churchill’s appeal for modifications.

  “The Prime Minister thinks we should make a gesture of magnanimity. But I must remind you that the Curzon line was invented not by Russia but by foreigners… by Curzon, Clemenceau and the Americans in 1918-1919. Russia was not invited and did not participate….Lenin opposed it.” Stalin was speaking with more and more heat. “Some want us to be less Russian than Curzon and Clemenceau. What will the Russians say at Moscow, and the Ukrainians? They will say that Stalin and Molotov are far less defenders of Russia than Curzon and Clemenceau. I cannot take such a position and return to Moscow.”

  By now Stalin was standing. “I prefer that the war continue a little longer and give Poland compensation in the west at the expense of Germany.” As for the government, the Prime Minister had said that he wanted to create a Polish government here. “I am afraid that was a slip of the tongue. Without the participation of Poles we can create no Polish government. They all say that I am a dictator but I have enough democratic feeling not to set up a Polish government without Poles.” As a military man he wanted peace and quiet in the wake of the Red Army. The Lublin government could maintain order, while the agents of the London government had already killed 212 Russian soldiers.

  “The military must have peace and quiet. The military will support such a government and I cannot do otherwise. Such is the situation.”

  There was a pause, and Roosevelt suggested adjournment. During the next three days the President and the Prime Minister and their foreign secretaries waged a tough and concerted campaign to win concessions from the Russians on Polish independence. The President informed Stalin bluntly that he would not recognize the Lublin government “as now composed” and that if the three leaders could not agree on Poland they “would lose the confidence of the world.” Churchill told him that the Lublin group did not represent even one-third of the people and he feared arrests and deportations of underground leaders. He contended that 150,000 men of the Polish Army on the Italian and Western fronts would feel betrayed if the London government was brushed aside. He noted acidly that in Egypt, “for example,” whatever government held an election won the election. To which Stalin replied that Egyptian politicians spent their time buying each other off, but this could not happen in Poland because of the high rate of literacy there.

  Step by step Roosevelt and Churchill exacted paper concessions from the Russians: that the Lublin government be “reorganized on a broader democratic basis” with the inclusion of democratic leaders from within Poland and without; that free and unfettered elections be held soon—perhaps within a month—on the basis of open suffrage and secret ballot; that leaders such as Mikolajczyk could take part in them. What was really at stake, however, was not the general formula but how much opportunity Washington and London would have in fact to influence the reorganization of the government and monitor the conduct of the elections. Even on this score Stalin conceded that Harriman and Kerr could consult with Lublin and non-Lublin leaders in Moscow, but the manner of holding and policing the elections was obscure.

  “Mr. President,” said Leahy, when he saw the compromise formula, “this is so elastic that the Russians can stretch it all the way from Yalta to Washington without even technically breaking it.”

  “I know, Bill—I know it. But it’s the best I can do for Poland at this time.”

  The best he could do…Doubtless Roosevelt knew already that the Polish compromise would be the most criticized part of the Yalta agreement, but he could hardly have sensed that it would be the heart of the later charges of betrayal, “sellout,” and near-treason. If he had known this, though, he would probably have taken the same basic position. He had reached the limit of his bargaining power at Yalta. His position resulted not from naïveté, ignorance, illness, or perfidy, but from his acceptance of the facts: Russia occupied Poland. Russia distrusted its Western allies. Russia had a million men who could fight Japan. Russia could sabotage the new peace organization. And Russia was absolutely determined about Poland and always had been. If the Big Three broke up at Yalta, the President knew, he would lose the great opportunities that lay ahead—for him to win Soviet co-operation by his personal diplomacy and friendliness, and for the United Nations to draw Russia over the years into the comity of nations.

  Roosevelt also knew that Poland was a crucial issue not only in itself but also as a bellwether of Communist ambitions in eastern Europe. Fearing the erosion of Western influence, he had taken the lead in drawing up a proposed Declaration on Liberated Europe upholding, on the principles of the Atlantic Charter, “the right of all peoples to choose the form of government under which they will live,” pledging Big Three assistance in holding free elections, and providing that the three governments would establish joint machinery when necessary to carry out these aims. The declaration, which evoked little British or Soviet opposition, was much on Roosevelt’s mind as Polish elections were being discussed. Poland, he said, would be the first application of the declaration.

  “I want this election in Poland to be the first one beyond question,” he said. “It should be like Caesar’s wife. I did not know her but they say she was pure.”

  “They said that about her,” Stalin remarked, “but in fact she had her sins.”

  ASIA: THE SECOND SECOND FRONT

  The President seemed so frail, his face so thin and transparent, at Yalta that his friends watched him narrowly for any signs of decline. Eden thought him vague and loose the first evening, and Lord Moran wrote him off as a dying man. Yet the Americans who worked with him closely at the conference—Byrnes, Stettinius, Leahy, Harriman—felt that he handled matters effectively and even skillfully. The main formal sessions came late in the afternoon, a time of day when Roosevelt’s strength had typically been at low ebb during the past year, but he conducted himself well in the discussions, even on technical matters on which he was not well briefed, and even though he had the added burden of presiding. He did not speak out as eloquently as Churchill or as bluntly or cogently as Stalin, but he was generally quick, alert, articulate, and even witty. When Churchill, in defending his imperial stand, added that he had sent his arguments to Wendell Willkie, the President shot back, “Was that what killed him?”

  Nor was Roosevelt ill during these February days in the Crimea, in the sense of the later charge of the “sick man at Yalta.” He worked hard through the day, even though he could not always take his afternoon rest. A cough kept him awake intermittently during the first few nights, but he complained of no cardiac or other pain, and Bruenn found his lungs clear and his heart and blood pressure unchanged. There were no electrocardiographic changes. Bruenn did become concerned, however, at what seemed to be a whipsawing of the President by the English; it seemed that Eden would take him on in the morning, and Churchill, who would sleep until noon, would take over in the afternoon. The evening banquets lasted until late at night. On February 8, after an especially difficult discussion of the Polish problem, his color was gray, and for the first time his blood pressure showed pulsus alternans. Although his lungs and heart were good, Bruenn insisted on no visitors until noon and more rest. Within t
wo days his appetite was excellent and the pulsus alternans had disappeared.

  Eden conceded later that Roosevelt’s seeming ill-health did not alter his judgment. He marveled, indeed, that the President not only kept up with Churchill in the round of formal and informal conferences, but also found time to conduct a whole separate enterprise at Yalta—negotiations with Stalin over the Far East.

  It was not until the fifth day that the subject of Soviet entrance into the Pacific war came up between Roosevelt and Stalin. They were meeting privately except for Harriman, Molotov, and the interpreters. Churchill and Eden were not there, nor the American military. Stalin said that he would like to discuss the political conditions under which the Soviet Union would enter the war against Japan. He added that he already had discussed the matter with Harriman.

  Roosevelt remembered only too well that discussion of mid-December, for Harriman had relayed it to him with some urgency. Stalin had gone into the room next to his office in the Kremlin, Harriman reported, and brought out a map. The Marshal had said that the Kurile Islands and lower Sakhalin should be returned to Russia in order to protect the approaches to Vladivostok. He had drawn a line around the southern part of the Liaotung Peninsula, including Port Arthur and Dairen, and stated that the Soviets wished again to lease these ports and the adjacent area. The Marshal had added that he wished to lease the Chinese-Eastern Railway running from Dairen to Harbin and beyond but—in answer to a pointed question of Harriman’s—he averred he had no intention to impair the sovereignty of China in Manchuria.