From Colony to Superpower: U.S. Foreign Relations Since 1776 (95 page)

A newly empowered military establishment approached postwar planning with special urgency. In their view, the debacle at Pearl Harbor had occurred because the civilian leadership, rejecting their advice, had pursued provocative policies toward Japan not backed by force. Another war was certain, they insisted, and technological advances would leave no time for last-minute preparation. The nation must be able to deter aggression or overwhelm it at the outset. There was even discussion of preemptive war. Military leaders were deeply skeptical of international organization. In a "world in which people play for keeps," Admiral King asserted, "we have got to take care of ourselves."
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They insisted on being included in postwar planning and urged that the nation maintain sufficient military power to deal with any threats. Air power was especially important, and the United States must have the bases to make it workable. They began to see at least dimly the major geopolitical consequences of the war—the
decline of Britain and the rise of the Soviet Union. They did not yet view the USSR as a potential enemy. Indeed, their planning through most of 1944 called for maintaining the Grand Alliance. Britain and Russia would police postwar Europe. The United States would be responsible for the Western Hemisphere and the Pacific and must have the naval and air power and overseas bases to play that role.
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While U.S. planning proceeded, the postwar world began to take form. As Allied armies swept through enemy-occupied regions, they shaped political settlements in the areas they liberated. In Italy, for example, without consulting the Soviets and to the horror of American liberals, the United States and Britain cut a deal with the fascist Marshal Badoglio for an interim government. As the Red Army drove across Eastern and Central Europe in 1944, Stalin dictated the arrangements in Romania, Bulgaria, and Hungary. He did not initially impose Communist governments, but he did make sure that those placed in power would comply with his wishes.

The political destiny of Poland became the cause célèbre, a major reason for the breakdown of the Grand Alliance and the beginning of the Cold War. The Nazi invasion of Poland in 1939 had brought France and Britain into the war, and for Churchill and to some extent Roosevelt, Poland assumed a special moral and symbolic significance. FDR also repeatedly reminded Stalin of the large bloc of Polish American voters in the United States, whose numbers he considerably exaggerated, likely as a ploy to wrest cosmetic concessions to make the inevitable outcome in Poland look better. For Russians, on the other hand, Poland historically had been the avenue for invasion by Germany, and Stalin insisted that any postwar government be "friendly." The virulently anti-Soviet Polish government-in-exile in London lobbied relentlessly for British and American backing. Stalin formed a clique of Polish Communists who accompanied the Red Army on its westward advance. He callously used the August 1944 Warsaw Uprising to solidify its position. As Soviet forces approached the capital, the Polish underground, seeking to liberate the city on its own, rose up against Nazi occupation forces. Claiming that his exhausted armies had advanced beyond their supply lines, Stalin kept them on the outskirts of Warsaw while the Nazis brutally decimated the rebels. To the shock of his allies, the Soviet dictator refused Anglo-American requests to airdrop supplies to those he dismissed as "criminals" and "adventurists."
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By late 1944, the brave new world Americans hoped for appeared in jeopardy. To the dismay of those few U.S. officials in the know, at an October meeting in Moscow code-named Tolstoy, Stalin and Churchill met before a warm fire in the Kremlin and after exchanging Polish jokes sketched out on paper a division of interest in Eastern and Central Europe: the Soviet Union preeminent in Bulgaria and Romania; Britain in Greece; influence to be shared in Yugoslavia and Hungary. "Let us burn the paper," Churchill said of what he later called a "naughty document," lest "it seemed we had disposed of these issues, so fateful to millions of people, in such an offhand manner." "No, you keep it," Stalin responded.
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In early December 1944, British soldiers forcibly suppressed a left-wing uprising in Greece as a first step toward restoring the monarchy. Despite Roosevelt's plaintive appeals for delay, Stalin on December 31 recognized the Communist-led government he had installed in Poland.

These events caused great alarm in the United States. Both liberals and conservatives denounced British actions in Greece, warning that this war was going the same direction as the last. Polish Americans and the Catholic Church expressed grave concern about Poland. Those American officials privy to the Churchill-Stalin "deal" warned that the creation of spheres of influence would subvert essential U.S. war aims. Stunned by Stalin's handling of the Warsaw Uprising, diplomats including ambassador to Moscow W. Averell Harriman and his top aide, George F. Kennan, began to view the Soviet Union as the major threat to the peace and urged the president to stand up to Stalin, even threaten to cut off military aid unless he conformed to U.S. wishes. Some military planners such as Secretary of the Navy James Forrestal pinpointed the USSR as the new enemy upon which U.S. postwar foreign and national security policies should focus.
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The Allies also took conflicting positions on Germany. Thinking in traditional balance-of-power terms, Churchill saw the restoration of a de-Nazified Germany as an essential counterweight to rising Soviet might in Europe. Stalin had insisted upon a punitive peace including dismemberment and heavy reparations to help compensate for the devastation inflicted on Soviet territory during the war. Roosevelt claimed to be equally "bloodthirsty." Stereotypically viewing Germans as warlike, he insisted that they must be de-Nazified
and
de-Prussianized. On one occasion, speaking metaphorically, he remarked that it would be necessary to
"castrate" them to keep them from reproducing their own kind.
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In the fall of 1944, he endorsed the draconian Morgenthau Plan, crafted by his secretary of the treasury, which called for awarding slices of German territory to neighbors and reducing the rest to two partitioned agricultural states. Many top Roosevelt advisers expressed horror at a plan that would require long-term U.S. occupation and have huge economic consequences for postwar Europe. A leak to the press during FDR's reelection campaign caused a furor.

Although increasingly uneasy about the direction of the alliance, Roosevelt clung to the approach he had taken early in the war. He reneged on the Morgenthau Plan. He continued to insist that discussion of postwar issues be delayed until the next Big Three meeting. He did not want conflict over Eastern Europe and Greece to jeopardize postwar great-power cooperation. Informed of the Churchill-Stalin spheres-of-influence deal, he let his allies know that there was no question in the world in which the United States did not have an interest. He was painfully aware that the Western allies needed Soviet help to end the war against Germany and defeat Japan at minimal cost. He also perceived that presence of the Red Army gave the Soviets the dominant position in Eastern Europe and there was little he could do about it.
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He continued to wrestle with the dilemma of how to win Stalin's trust without making it appear to Americans that he had abandoned self-determination. On Eastern Europe, Kimball notes, he "evaded, avoided, and ignored specifics," hoping to "insulate the more important objective—long-term collaboration."
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He continued to hope that by persuading Stalin the United States posed no threat he could get him to maintain an open sphere of influence that would protect vital Soviet interests but allow the free flow of information and trade and at least the semblance of basic freedom for the peoples involved. He hedged his bets by refusing to share with the Soviet leader information about work on the atomic bomb and by holding back commitments of postwar economic aid.
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Roosevelt discussed these issues with Churchill and Stalin for the last time at Yalta in the Crimea in early February 1945. The very name "Yalta" has served as a metaphor for the ebb and flow of tensions with the Soviet
Union. For some U.S. participants, the conference seemed, in Hopkins's words, "the first great victory for the peace," a meeting where allies with divergent interests reached reasonable agreements to end the war and establish a basis for lasting peace.
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Less than ten years later, in the tense atmosphere of the early Cold War, Yalta became synonymous with treason, fiercely partisan critics of FDR claiming that a dying president, duped by pro-Communist advisers, conceded Soviet control over Poland and Eastern Europe and sold out Chiang Kai-shek. A "great betrayal," it was labeled, "appeasement greater than Munich." Because a "sick man went to Yalta" and "gave away much of the world," Senator William Langer fumed, "our beloved country is facing ruin and destruction."
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The Yalta Conference cannot be understood without recognizing the historical context in which it took place. By the time the Big Three met at the former tsarist retreat in the Black Sea resort town, the Red Army had "liberated" much of Eastern and Central Europe and was poised to drive toward Berlin. Meanwhile, Germany's last-ditch December 1944 counteroffensive, leading to the Battle of the Bulge, slowed the U.S. advance. The end of the European war was in view, but much hard fighting lay ahead. Uncertain whether the atomic bomb would be available in time or indeed would work, U.S. military leaders agreed with FDR that Soviet entry into the war against Japan was essential to secure victory at acceptable cost. Although the Allies differed significantly on crucial postwar issues, Roosevelt still hoped for great-power cooperation. The trip for an already ill man was exhausting. The classic photographs of a drawn and haggard president adorned in that loose-fitting black cape graphically manifest the illness that would soon kill him. But there is no evidence that his mental faculties were in any way impaired. The conference provided many dramatic moments. There was ceremony galore, including sumptuous banquets with endless rounds of toasts. On the verge of victory in Europe, the Big Three saluted each other with lavish words of praise. At times, the tensions were palpable. When Churchill insisted that Poland was for Britain a matter of honor, Stalin shot back that for the USSR it was a matter of security. When Roosevelt suggested that elections in Poland should be as "pure" as Caesar's wife, the Soviet dictator retorted that "in fact she had her sins."
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Over five days of arduous negotiations, the Big Three hammered out broad agreements to end the war and establish the peace. The terms reflected the decisions made—or not made—at Tehran and, more important, the positions of the respective armies. Much to the satisfaction of Roosevelt, and of most Americans, Stalin agreed to take part in a United Nations organization essentially as the United States had designed it. In return for the restoration of Russia's pre-1905 position in East Asia, he agreed to enter the war against Japan three months after V-E Day, a promise that seemed to FDR and his military advisers—at this time—especially important. He also expressed "readiness" to conclude an alliance with China, a commitment Roosevelt hoped would affirm his support for Chiang Kai-shek and help avert civil war there. On the key issues involving German dismemberment and reparations, the Allies continued to disagree and deferred substantive decisions. On the even more divisive issues of Eastern Europe and Poland, they used diplomatic phraseology to gloss over numerous unsettled conflicts.
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A vague and unworkable Declaration on Liberated Europe called for elections in areas liberated from the Germans. Roosevelt had hoped for at least token concessions on Poland, but Stalin remained obdurate. The Allies agreed to an equally vague statement that the existing Polish government—the one created by Stalin—should be reorganized on a "broader democratic basis." When Admiral Leahy protested that the agreement was so elastic it could be stretched from the Crimea to Washington without breaking, the president responded with resignation: "I know, Bill. But it's the best I could do for Poland at this time."
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In the weeks after Yalta, relations among the Allies soured. Efforts to implement the agreement on Poland foundered amidst charges and countercharges and reports from inside the country of intimidation and mass arrests. "Poland has lost her frontier," Churchill warned Roosevelt, referring to the earlier cession of territory to the USSR. "Is she now to lose her freedom?"
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A clandestine effort by OSS operative Allen Dulles in Bern to arrange for the surrender of German troops in Italy aroused the darkest Soviet suspicions and provoked the most vitriolic exchange ever between FDR and Stalin. The Soviet dictator accused the United States, if not Roosevelt directly, of betrayal; the president expressed
"bitter resentment" at the "vile misrepresentations" of Stalin's informants.
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On April 12, 1945, at Warm Springs, Georgia, Roosevelt died. It was a crucial event at an especially critical time in the Grand Alliance, but its precise significance is difficult to gauge. The argument that Roosevelt was moving toward taking a hard line with the Soviet Union is unpersuasive.
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In his last weeks, he firmly resisted Churchill's call for such policies. He privately mused that the prime minister would like nothing better than Soviet-American conflict. His last comments to Churchill on the issue were in fact calm and characteristically upbeat. It seems doubtful, on the other hand, as has been argued, that the Yalta agreements provided a solid foundation for stable U.S.-Soviet postwar relations.
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Did FDR still hope that his personal influence could bridge the widening gap of suspicion that separated the two nations? Or was he simply muddling through, as in 1940–41, letting events themselves clarify his course ("when I don't know how to move, I stay put," he explained it)?
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We can never know for sure. To the end, the president was what Henry Wallace called "a waterman" who "looks in one direction and rows the other with the utmost skill."
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Like Abraham Lincoln, he died before his work was complete, shrouding his legacy in uncertainty, leaving the haunting and unanswerable question of whether history might have turned out differently had he lived.