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Cold War

damage in Soviet-American relations seemed irreparable. Although the Truman

plan envisioned ultimate sharing of international control, it left the

United States with an atomic monopoly—and in a dominant position—until the

very last stage. The Soviets would have no veto power over inspections or

sanctions, and even at the end of the process, the United States would

control the majority of votes within the body responsible for developing

peaceful uses of atomic energy inside the Soviet Union. When the Russians

asked to negotiate about the specifics of the plan, they were told they

must either accept the entire package or nothing at all. In the context of

Soviet-American relations in 1946, the result was predictable—the genie of

the atomic arms race would remain outside the bottle.

Not all influential Americans were "pleased by the growing

polarization. Averell Harriman, who a year earlier had been in the

forefront of those demanding a hard-line position from Truman, now pulled

back somewhat. "We must recognize that we occupy the same planet as the

Russians," he said, "and whether we like it or not, disagreeable as they

may be, we have to find some method of getting along." The columnist Walter

Lippmann, deeply concerned about the direction of events, wondered whether

the inexperience and personal predilections of some of America's

negotiators might not be part of the problem. Nor were all the signs

negative. After his initial confrontation with Molotov, Truman appeared to

have second thoughts, sending Harry Hopkins to Moscow to attempt to find

some common ground with Stalin on Poland and Eastern Europe. The Russians,

in turn, had not been totally aggressive. They withdrew from Hungary after

free elections in that country had led to the establishment of a

noncommunist regime. Czechoslovakia was also governed by a coalition

government with a Western-style parliament. The British, at least,

announced themselves satisfied with the election process in Bulgaria. Even

in Romania, some concessions were made to include elements more favorably

disposed to the West. The Russians finally backed down in Iran—under

considerable pressure—and would do so again in a dispute over the Turkish

straits in the late summer of 1946.

Still, the events of 1946 had the cumulative effect of creating an aura

of inevitability about bipolar confrontation in the world. The

preponderance of energy in each country seemed committed to the side of

suspicion and hostility rather than mutual accommodation. If Stalin's

February prediction of inevitable war between capitalism and communism

embodied in its purest form Russia's jaundiced perception of relations

between the two countries, an eight-thousand-word telegram from George

Kennan to the State Department articulated the dominant frame of reference

within which Soviet actions would be perceived by U.S. officials. Perhaps

the preeminent expert on the Soviets, and a veteran of service in Moscow in

the thirties as well as the forties, Kennan had been asked to prepare an

analysis of Stalin's speech. Responding in words intended to command

attention to Washington, Kennan declared that the United States was

confronted with a "political force committed fanatically to the belief that

[with the] United States there can be no permanent modus vivendi, that it

is desirable and necessary that the internal harmony of our society be

broken if Soviet power is to be secure." According' to Kennan, the Russians

truly believed the world to be divided permanently into capitalist and

socialist camps, with the Soviet Union dedicated to "ever new heights of

military power" even as it sought to subvert its enemies through an

"underground operating directorate of world communism." The analysis was

frightening, confirming the fears of those most disturbed by the Soviet

system's denial of human rights and hardline posture toward Western demands

for free elections and open borders in occupied Europe.

Almost immediately, the Kennan telegram became required reading for the

entire diplomatic and military establishment in Washington.

2.3 The Marshall Plan.

The chief virtue of the plan Marshall and his aides were Grafting was

its fusion of these political and economic concerns. As Truman told a

Baylor University audience in March 1947, "peace, freedom, and world trade

are indivisible. . . . We must not go through the '3os again." Since free

enterprise was seen as the foundation for democracy and prosperity, helping

European economies would both assure friendly governments abroad and

additional jobs at home. To accomplish that ^ goal, however, the United

States would need to give economic aid directly rather than through the

United Nations, since only under those circumstances would American control

be assured. Ideally, the Marshall Plan would provide an economic arm to the

political strategy embodied —in the Truman Doctrine. Moreover, if presented

as a program in which even Eastern European countries could participate, it

would provide, at last potentially, a means of including pro-Soviet

countries and breaking Stalin's political and economic domination over

Eastern Europe.

On that basis, Marshall dramatically announced his proposal at Harvard

University's commencement on June 5, 1947. "Our policy is directed not

against any country or doctrine," Marshall said, "but against hunger,

poverty, desperation, and chaos. Its purpose should be revival of a working

economy. Any government that is willing to assist in the task of recovery

will find full cooperation ... on the part of the United States

government." Responding, French Foreign Minister George Bidault invited

officials throughout Europe, including the Soviet Union, to attend a

conference in Paris to draw up a plan of action. Poland and Czechoslovakia

expressed interest, and Molotov himself came to Paris with eighty-nine

aides.

Rather than inaugurate a new era of cooperation, however, the next few

days simply reaffirmed how far polarization had already extended. Molotov

urged that each country present its own needs independently to the United

States. Western European countries, on the other hand, insisted that all

the countries cooperate in a joint proposal for American consideration.

Since the entire concept presumed extensive sharing of economic data on

each country's resources and liabilities, as well as Western control over

how the aid would be expended, the Soviets angrily walked out of the

deliberations. In fact, the United States never believed that the Russians

would participate in the project, knowing that it was a violation of every

Soviet precept to open their economic records to examination and control by

capitalist outsiders. Furthermore, U.S. strategy was premised on a major

rebuilding of German industry—something profoundly threatening to the

Russians. Ideally, Americans viewed a thriving Germany as the foundation

for revitalizing the economies of all Western European countries, and

providing the key to prosperity on both sides of the Atlantic. To a

remarkable extent, that was precisely the result of the Marshall Plan.

Understandably, such a prospect frightened the Soviets, but the consequence

was to further the split between East and West, and in particular, to

undercut the possibility of promoting further cooperation with countries

like Hungary and Czechoslovakia.

In the weeks and months after the Russians left Paris, the final pieces

of the Cold War were set in place. Shortly after the Soviet departure from

Paris the Russians announced the creation of a series of bilateral trade

agreements called the "Molotov Plan," designed to link Eastern bloc

countries and provide a Soviet answer to the Marshall Plan. Within the same

week the Russians created a new Communist Information Bureau (Cominform),

including representatives from the major Western European communist

parties, to serve as a vehicle for imposing Stalinist control on anyone who

might consider deviating from the party line. Speaking at the Cominform

meeting in August, Andre Zhdanov issued the Soviet Union's rebuttal to the

Truman Doctrine. The United States, he charged, was organizing the

countries of the Near East, Western Europe, and South America into an

alliance committed to the destruction of communism. Now, he said, the "new

democracies" of Eastern Europe—plus their allies in developing

countries—must form a counter bloc. The world would thus be made up of "two

camps," each ideologically, politically, and, to a growing extent,

militarily defined by its opposition to the other.

To assure that no one misunderstood, Russia moved quickly to impose a

steel-like grip on Eastern Europe. In August 1947 the Soviets purged all

left-wing, anticommunist leaders from Hungary and then rigged elections to

assure a pro-Soviet regime there. Six months later, in February 1948,

Stalin moved on Czechoslovakia as well, insisting on the abolition of

independent parties and sending Soviet troops to the Czech border to back

up Soviet demands for an all new communist government. After Foreign

Minister Jan Masaryk either jumped or was pushed from a window in Prague,

the last vestige of resistance faded. "We are [now] faced with exactly the

same situation . . . Britain and France faced in 1938-39 with Hitler,"

Truman wrote. The Czech coup coincided with overwhelming approval of the

Marshall Plan by the American Congress. Two weeks later, on March 5,

General Lucius Clay sent his telegram from Germany warning of imminent war

with Russia. Shortly thereafter, Truman called on Congress to implement

Universal Military Training for all Americans. (The plan was never put in

place.) By the end of the month Russia had instituted a year-long blockade

of all supplies to Berlin in protest against the West's decision to unify

her occupation zones in Germany and institute currency reform. Before the

end of spring, the Brussels Pact had brought together the major powers of

Western Europe in a mutual defense pact that a year later would provide the

basis for NATO. If the Truman Doctrine, in Bernard Baruch's words, had been

"a declaration of ideological or religious war," the Marshall Plan, the

Molotov Plan, and subsequent developments in Eastern Europe represented the

economic, political, and military demarcations that would define the

terrain on which the war would be fought. The Cold War had begun.

Chapter 3: The Role of Cold War in American History and Diplomacy.

3.1 Declaration of the Cold War.

In late February 1947, a British official journeyed to the State

Department to inform Dean Acheson that the crushing burden of Britain's

economic crisis prevented her from any longer accepting responsibility for

the economic and military stability of Greece and Turkey. The message,

Secretary of State George Marshall noted, "was tantamount to British

abdication from the Middle East, with obvious implications as to their

successor." Conceivably, America could have responded quietly, continuing

the steady stream of financial support already going into the area. Despite

aid to the insurgents from Yugoslavia and Bulgaria, the war going on in

Greece was primarily a civil struggle, with the British side viewed by many

as reactionary in its politics. But instead, Truman administration

officials seized the moment as the occasion for a dramatic new commitment

to fight communism. In their view, Greece and Turkey could well hold the

key to the future of Europe itself. Hence they decided to ask Congress for

$400 million in military and economic aid. In the process, the

administration publicly defined postwar diplomacy, for the first time, as a

universal conflict between the forces of good and the forces of evil.

Truman portrayed the issue as he did, at least in part, because his

aides had failed to convince Congressmen about the merits of the case on

grounds of self-interest alone. Americans were concerned about the Middle

East for many reasons—preservation of political stability, guarantee of

access to mineral resources, a need to assure a prosperous market for

American goods. Early drafts of speeches on the issue had focused

specifically on economic questions. America could not afford, one advisor

noted, to allow Greece and similar areas to "spiral downward into economic

anarchy." But such arguments, another advisor noted, "made the whole thing

sound like an investment prospectus." Indeed, when Secretary of State

Marshall used such arguments of self-interest with Congressmen, his words

fell on deaf ears, particularly given the commitment of Republicans to cut

government spending to the bone. It was at that moment. Dean Acheson

recalled, that "in desperation I whispered to [Marshall] a request to

speak. This was my crisis. For a week I had nurtured it."

When Acheson took the floor, he transformed the atmosphere in the room.

The issue, he declared, was the effort by Russian communism to seize

dominance over three continents, and encircle and capture Western Europe.

"Like apples in a barrel infected by the corruption of one rotten one, the

corruption of Greece would infect Iran and alter the Middle East . . .

Africa . . . Italy and France." The struggle was ultimate, Acheson

concluded. "Not since Rome and Carthage has there been such a polarization

of power on this earth. . . . We and we alone are in a position to break

up" the Soviet quest for world domination. Suddenly, the Congressmen sat up

and took notice. That argument, Senator Arthur Vandenberg told the

president, would be successful. If Truman wanted his program of aid to be

approved, he would—like Acheson—have to "scare hell" out of the American

people.

By the time Truman came before Congress on March 12, the issue was no

longer whether the United States should extend economic aid to Greece and

Turkey on a basis of self-interest, but rather whether America was willing

to sanction the spread of tyrannical communism everywhere in the world.

Facing the same dilemma Roosevelt had confronted during the 1930S in his

effort to get Americans ready for war, Truman sensed that only if the

issues were posed as directly related to the nation's fundamental moral

concern—not just self-interest— would there be a possibility of winning

political support. Hence, as Truman defined the question, the world had to

choose "between alternative ways of life." One option was "free," based on

"representative government, free elections, guarantees of individual

liberty, and freedom of speech and religion." The other option was

"tyranny," based on "terror and oppression, a controlled press and radio, .

. . and a suppression of personal freedoms." Given a choice between freedom

and totalitarianism, Truman concluded, "it must be the policy of the United

States to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by

armed minorities."

Drawing on the "worst case" scenario implicit in Kennan's telegram,

Truman, in effect, had presented the issue of American-Soviet relations as

one of pure ideological and moral conflict. There were some who criticized

him. Senator Robert Taft, for example, wondered whether, if the United

States took responsibility for Greece and Turkey, Americans could object

to the Russians continuing their domination over Eastern Europe. Secretary

of State Marshall was disturbed at "the extent to which the anticommunist

element of the speech was stressed." And George Kennan, concerned over how

his views had been used, protested against the president's strident tone.

But Truman and Acheson had understood the importance of defining the issue

on grounds of patriotism and moral principle. If the heart of the question

was the universal struggle of freedom against tryanny—not taking sides in

a civil war— who could object to what the government proposed? It was,

Senator Arthur Vandenberg noted, "almost like a presidential request for a

declaration of war. . . . There is precious little we can do except say

yes." By mid-May, Truman's aid package had passed Congress overwhelmingly.

On the same day the Truman Doctrine received final approval, George

Marshall and his aides at the State Department were busy shaping what

Truman would call the second half of the same walnut— the Marshall Plan of

massive economic support to rebuild Western Europe. Britain, France,

Germany, Italy, Belgium—all were devastated by the war, their cities lying

in rubble, their industrial base gutted. It was difficult to know if they

could survive, yet the lessons of World War I suggested that political

democracy and stability depended on the presence of a healthy and thriving

economic order. Already American officials were concerned that Italy—and

perhaps France—would succumb to the political appeal of native communists

and become victims of what William Bullitt had called the "red amoeba"

spreading all across Europe. Furthermore, America's selfish economic

interests demanded strong trading partners in Western Europe. "No nation in

modern times," Assistant Secretary of State Will Clayton had said, "can

long expect to enjoy a rising standard of living without increased foreign

trade." America imported from Europe only half of what it exported, and

Western Europe was quickly running out of dollars to pay for American

goods. If some form of massive support to reconstruct Europe's economy were

not developed, economic decay there would spread, unemployment in America

would increase, and political instability could well lead to communist

takeovers of hitherto "friendly" counties.

3.2 Cold War Issues.

Although historians have debated for years the cause of the Cold War,

virtually everyone agrees that it developed around five major issues:

Poland, the structure of governments in other Eastern European

countries, the future of Germany, economic reconstruction of Europe, and

international policies toward the atomic bomb and atomic energy. All of

these intersected, so that within a few months, it became almost impossible

to separate one from the other as they interacted to shape the emergence of

a bipolar world. Each issue in its own way also reflected the underlying

confusion and conflict surrounding the competing doctrines of

"universalist" versus "sphere-of-influence" diplomacy. Examination of these

fundamental questions is essential if we are to comprehend how and why the

tragedy of the Cold War evolved during the three years after Germany's

defeat.

Poland constituted the most intractable and profound dilemma facing

Soviet-U.S. relations. As Secretary of State Edward Stettinius observed in

1945, Poland was "the big apple in the barrel." Unfortunately, it also

symbolized, for both sides, everything that the war had been fought for.

From a Soviet perspective, Poland represented the quintessence of Russia's

national security needs. On three occasions, Poland had served as the

avenue for devastating invasions of Russian territory. It was imperative,

given Russian history, that Poland be governed by a regime supportive of

the Soviet Union. But Poland also represented, both in fact and in symbol,

everything for which the Western Allies had fought. Britain and France had

declared war on Germany in September 1939 when Hitler invaded Poland, thus

honoring their mutual defense pact with that victimized country. It seemed

unthinkable that one could wage war for six years and end up with another

totalitarian country in control of Poland. Surely if the Atlantic Charter

signified anything, it required defending the right of the Polish people to

determine their own destiny. The presence of 7 million Polish-American

voters offered a constant, if unnecessary, reminder that such issues of

self-determination could not be dismissed lightly. Thus, the first issue

confronting the Allies in building a postwar world would also be one on

which compromise was virtually impossible, at least without incredible

diplomatic delicacy, political subtlety, and profound appreciation, by each

ally, of the other's needs and priorities.

Roosevelt appears to have understood the tortuous path he would have to

travel in order to find a peaceful resolution of the conflict. Given his

own commitment to the Atlantic Charter, rooted in both domestic political

reasons and personal conviction, he recognized the need to advocate an

independent and democratic government for the Polish people. "Poland must

be reconstituted a great nation," he told the country during the 1944

election. Yet the president also repeatedly acknowledged that the Russians

must have a "friendly" government in Warsaw. Somehow, Roosevelt hoped to

find a way to subordinate these two conflicting positions to the higher

priority of postwar peace. "The President," Harry Hopkins said in 1943,

"did not intend to go to the Peace Conference and bargain with Poland or

the other small states; as far as Poland is concerned, the important thing

[was] to set it up in a way that [would] help maintain the peace of the

world."

The issue was first joined at the Tehran conference. There, Churchill

and Roosevelt endorsed Stalin's position that Poland's eastern border, for

security reasons, should be moved to the west. As Roosevelt had earlier

explained to the ambassador from the Polish government-in-exile in London,

it was folly to expect the United States and Britain "to declare war on Joe

Stalin over a boundary dispute." On the other hand, Roosevelt urged Stalin

to be flexible, citing his own need for the Polish vote in the 1944

presidential election and the importance of establishing cooperation

between the London Poles and the Lublin government-in-exile situated in

Moscow. Roosevelt had been willing to make a major concession to Russia's

security needs by accepting the Soviet definition of Poland's new

boundaries. But he also expected some consideration of his own political

dilemma and of the principles of the Atlantic Charter.

Such consideration appeared to be forthcoming in the summer of 1944

when Stalin agreed to meet the prime minister of the London-Polish

government and "to mediate" between the two opposing governments-in-exile.

But hopes for such a compromise were quickly crushed as Soviet troops

failed to aid the Warsaw Polish resistance when it rose in massive

rebellion against German occupation forces in hopes of linking up with

advancing Soviet forces. The Warsaw Poles generally supported the London

government-in-exile. As Red Army troops moved to just six miles outside of

Warsaw, the Warsaw Poles rose en masse against their Nazi oppressors. Yet

when they did so, the Soviets callously rejected all pleas for help. For

eight weeks they even refused to permit American planes to land on Soviet

soil after airlifting supplies to the beleaguered Warsaw rebels. By the

time the rebellion ended, 250,000 people had become casualties, with the

backbone of the pro-London resistance movement brutally crushed. Although

some Americans, then and later, accepted Soviet claims that logistical

problems had prevented any assistance being offered, most Americans

endorsed the more cynical conclusion that Stalin had found a convenient way

to annihilate a large part of his Polish opposition and facilitate

acquisition of a pro-Soviet regime. As Ambassador Averell Harriman cabled

at the time, Russian actions were based on "ruthless political

considerations."

By the time of the Yalta conference, the Red Army occupied Poland,

leaving Roosevelt little room to maneuver. When one American diplomat urged

the president to force Russia to agree to Polish independence, Roosevelt

responded: "Do you want me to go to war with Russia?" With Stalin having

already granted diplomatic recognition to the Lublin regime, Roosevelt

could only hope that the Soviets would accept enough modification of the

status quo to provide the appearance of representative democracy. Spheres

of influence were a reality, FDR told seven senators, because "the

occupying forces [have] the power in the areas where their arms are

present." All America could do was to use her influence "to ameliorate the

situation."

Nevertheless, Roosevelt played what cards he had with skill. "Most

Poles," he told Stalin, "want to save face. ... It would make it easier for

me at home if the Soviet government could give something to Poland." A

government of national unity, Roosevelt declared, would facilitate public

acceptance in the United States of full American participation in postwar

arrangements. "Our people at home look with a critical eye on what they

consider a disagreement between us. ... They, in effect, say that if we

cannot get a meeting of minds now . . . how can we get an understanding on

even more vital things in the future?" Although Stalin's immediate response

was to declare that Poland was "not only a question of honor for Russia,

but one of life and death," he finally agreed that some reorganization of

the Lublin regime could take place to ensure broader representation of all

Poles.

In the end, the Big Three papered over their differences at Yalta by

agreeing to a Declaration on Liberated Europe that committed the Allies to

help liberated peoples resolve their problems through democratic means and

advocated the holding of free elections. Although Roosevelt's aide Admiral

William Leahy told him that the report on Poland was "so elastic that the

Russians can stretch it all the way from Yalta to Washington without ever

technically breaking it," Roosevelt believed that he had done the best he

could under the circumstances. From the beginning, Roosevelt had

recognized, on a de facto basis at least, that Poland was part of Russia's

sphere of influence and must remain so. He could only hope that Stalin

would now show equal recognition of the U.S. need to have concessions that

would give the appearance, at least, of implementing the Atlantic Charter.

The same basic dilemmas, of course, occurred with regard to the

structure of postwar governments in all of Eastern Europe. As early as

1943, Roosevelt had made clear to Stalin at Tehran that he was willing to

have the Baltic states controlled by the Soviets. His only request, the

president told Stalin, was for some public commitment to future elections

in order to satisfy his constituents at home for whom "the big issues . . .

would be the question of referendum and the right of self-determination."

The exchange with Stalin accurately reflected Roosevelt's position over

time.

Significantly, Roosevelt even sanctioned Churchill's efforts to divide

Europe into spheres of influence. With Roosevelt's approval, Churchill

journeyed to Moscow in the fall of 1944. Sitting across the table from

Stalin, Churchill proposed that Russia exercise 90 percent predominance in

Romania, 75 percent in Bulgaria, and 50 percent control, together with

Britain, in Yugoslavia and Hungary, while the United States and Great

Britain would exercise 90 percent predominance in Greece. After extended

discussion and some hard bargaining, the deal was made. (Poland was not

even included in Churchill's percentages, suggesting that he was

acknowledging Soviet control there.) At the time, Churchill suggested that

the arrangements be expressed "in diplomatic terms [without use of] the

phrase 'dividing into spheres,' because the Americans might be shocked."

But in fact, as Robert Daliek has shown in his superb study of Roosevelt's

diplomacy, the American president accepted the arrangement. "I am most

pleased to know," FDR wrote Churchill, "you are reaching a meeting of your

two minds as to international policies." To Harriman he cabled: "My active

interest at the present time in the Balkan area is that such steps as are

practicable should be taken to insure against the Balkans getting us into a

future international war." At no time did Roosevelt protest the British-

Soviet agreement.

In the case of Eastern Europe generally, even more so than in Poland,

it seemed clear that Roosevelt, on a de facto basis, was prepared to live

with spheres-of-influence diplomacy. Nevertheless, he remained constantly

sensitive to the political peril he faced at home on the issue. As

Congressman John Dingell stated in a public warning in August 1943, "We

Americans are not sacrificing, fighting, and dying to make permanent and

more powerful the communistic government of Russia and to make Joseph

Stalin a dictator over the liberated countries of Europe." Such sentiments

were widespread. Indeed, it was concern over such opinions that led

Roosevelt to urge the Russians to be sensitive to American political

concerns. In Eastern Europe for the most part, as in Poland, the key

question was whether the United States could somehow find a way to

acknowledge spheres of influence, but within a context of universalist

principles, so that the American people would not feel that the Atlantic

Charter had been betrayed.

The future of Germany represented a third critical point of conflict.

For emotional as well as political reasons, it was imperative that steps be

taken to prevent Germany from ever again waging war. In FDR's words, "We

have got to be tough with Germany, and I mean the German people not just

the Nazis. We either have to castrate the German people or you have got to

treat them in such a manner so they can't just go on reproducing people who

want to continue the way they have in the past." Consistent with that

position, Roosevelt had agreed with Stalin at Tehran on the need for

destroying a strong Germany by dividing the country into several sectors,

"as small and weak as possible."

Still operating on that premise, Roosevelt endorsed Secretary of the

Treasury Henry Morgenthau's plan to eliminate all industry from Germany and

convert the country into a pastoral landscape of small farms. Not only

would such a plan destroy any future war-making power, it would also

reassure the Soviet Union of its own security. "Russia feared we and the

British were going to try to make a soft peace with Germany and build her

up as a possible future counter-weight against Russia," Morgenthau said.

His plan would avoid that, and simultaneously implement Roosevelt's

insistence that "every person in Germany should realize that this time

Germany is a defeated nation." Hence, in September 1944, Churchill and

Roosevelt approved the broad outlines of the Morgenthau plan as their

policy for Germany.

Within weeks, however, the harsh policy of pastoralization came

unglued. From a Soviet perspective, there was the problem of how Russia

could exact the reparations she needed from a country with no industrial

base. American policymakers, in turn, objected that a Germany without

industrial capacity would prove unable to support herself, placing the

entire burden for maintaining the populace on the Allies. Rumors spread

that the Morgenthau plan was stiffening German resistance on the western

front. American business interests, moreover, suggested the importance of

retaining German industry as a key to postwar commerce and trade.

As a result, Allied policy toward Germany became a shambles. "No one

wants to make Germany a wholly agricultural nation again," Roosevelt

insisted. "No one wants 'complete eradication of German industrial

production capacity in the Ruhr and the Saar.' " Confused about how to

proceed, Roosevelt—in effect—adopted a policy of no policy. "I dislike

making detailed plans for a country which we do not yet occupy," he said.

When Churchill, Stalin, and Roosevelt met for the last time in Yalta, this

failure to plan prevented a decisive course of action. The Russians

insisted on German reparations of $20 billion, half of which would go to

the Soviet Union. Although FDR accepted Stalin's figure as a basis for

discussion, the British and Americans deferred any settlement of the issue,

fearing that they would be left with the sole responsibility for feeding

and housing the German people. The only agreement that could be reached was

to refer the issue to a new tripartite commission. Thus, at just the moment

when consensus on a policy to deal with their common enemy was most urgent,

the Allies found themselves empty handed, allowing conflict and

misunderstanding over another central question to join the already existing

problems over Eastern Europe.

Directly related to each of these issues, particularly the German

question, was the problem of postwar economic reconstruction. The issue

seemed particularly important to those Americans concerned about the

postwar economy in the United States. Almost every business and political

leader feared resumption of mass unemployment once the war ended. Only the

development of new markets, extensive trade, and worldwide economic

cooperation could prevent such an eventuality. "The capitalistic system is

essentially an international system," one official declared. "If it cannot

function internationally, it will break down completely." The Atlantic

Charter had taken such a viewpoint into account when it declared that all

states should enjoy access, on equal terms, to "the raw materials of the

world which are needed for their economic prosperity."

To promote these objectives, the United States took the initiative at

Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, in 1944 by creating a World Bank with a

capitalization of $7.6 billion and the International Monetary Fund with a

capitalization of $7.3 billion. The two organizations would provide funds

for rebuilding Europe, as well as for stabilizing world currency. Since the

United States was the major contributor, it would exercise decisive control

over how the money was spent. The premise underlying both organizations was

that a stable world required healthy economies based on free trade.

Attitudes toward economic reconstruction had direct import for postwar

policies toward Germany and Eastern Europe. It would be difficult to have a

stable European economy without a significant industrial base in Germany.

Pastoral countries of small farms rarely possessed the wherewithal to

become customers of large capitalist enterprises. On the other hand, a

prosperous German economy, coupled with access to markets in Eastern and

Western Europe, offered the prospect of avoiding a recurrence of depression

and guaranteed a significant American presence in European politics as

well. Beyond this, of course, it was thought that if democracy was to

survive, as it had not after 1918, countries needed a thriving economy.

Significantly, economic aid also offered the opportunity either to

enhance or diminish America's ties to the Soviet Union. Averell Harriman,

the American ambassador to Moscow after October 1943, had engaged in

extensive business dealings with the Soviet Union during the 1920S and

believed firmly in the policy of providing American assistance to rebuild

the Soviet economy. Such aid, Harriman argued, "would be in the self-

interest of the United States" because it would help keep Americans at work

producing goods needed by the Russians. Just as important, it would provide

"one of the most effective weapons to avoid the development of a sphere of

influence of the Soviet Union over eastern Europe and the Balkans."

Proceeding on these assumptions, Harriman urged the Russians to apply

for American aid. They did so, initially, in December 1943 with a request

for a $1 billion loan at an interest rate of one-half of 1 percent, then

again in January 1945 with a request for a $6 billion loan at an interest

rate of 2.25 percent. Throughout this period, American officials appeared

to encourage the Soviet initiative. Secretary of the Treasury Morgenthau

had come up with his own plan for a $10 billion loan at 2 percent interest.

When Chamber of Commerce head Eric Johnson visited Moscow, Stalin told him:

"I like to do business with American businessmen. You fellows know what you

want. Your word is good, and, best of all, you stay in office a long

time—just like we do over here." So enthusiastic were some State Department

officials about postwar economic arrangements that they predicted exports

of as much as $1 billion a year to Russia. Molotov and Mikoyan encouraged

such optimism, with the Soviets promising "a voluminous and stable market

such as no other customer would ever [offer]."

As the European war drew to a close, however, the American attitude

shifted from one of eager encouragement to skeptical detachment. Harriman

and his aides in Moscow perceived a toughening of the Soviet position on

numerous issues, including Poland and Eastern Europe. Hence, they urged the

United States to clamp down on lend-lease and exact specific concessions

from the Russians in return for any ongoing aid. Only if the Soviets

"played the international game with us in accordance with our standards,"

Harriman declared, should the United States offer assistance. By April

1945, Harriman had moved to an even more hard-line position. "We must

clearly recognize," he said, "that the Soviet program is the establishment

of totalitarianism, ending personal liberty and democracy." A week later he

urged the State Department to view the Soviet loan request with great

suspicion. "Our basic interest," he cabled, "might better be served by

increasing our trade with other parts of the world rather than giving

preference to the Soviet Union as a source of supply."

Congress and the American people, meanwhile, seemed to be turning

against postwar economic aid. A public opinion poll in December 1944 showed

that 70 percent of the American people believed the Allies should repay

their lend-lease debt in full. Taking up the cry for fiscal restraint,

Senator Arthur Vandenberg told a friend: "We have a rich country, but it is

not rich enough to permit us to support the world." Fearful about postwar

recession and the possibility that American funds would be used for

purposes it did not approve, Congress placed severe constraints on

continuation of any lend-lease support once the war was over and indicated

that any request for a postwar loan would encounter profound skepticism.

Roosevelt's response, in the face of such attitudes, was once again to

procrastinate. Throughout the entire war he had ardently espoused a

generous and flexible lend-lease policy toward the Soviet Union. For the

most part, FDR appeared to endorse Secretary Morgenthau's attitude that "to

get the Russians to do something [we] should ... do it nice. . . . Don't

drive such a hard bargain that when you come through it does not taste

good." Consistent with that attitude, he had rejected Harriman's advice to

demand quid pro quos for American lend-lease. Economic aid, he declared,

did not "constitute a bargaining weapon of any strength," particularly

since curtailing lend-lease would harm the United States as much as it

would injure the Russians. Nevertheless, Roosevelt accepted a policy of

postponement on any discussion of postwar economic arrangements. "I think

it's very important," the president declared, "that we hold back and don't

give [Stalin] any promise until we get what we want." Clearly, the amount

of American aid to the Soviet Union—and the attitude which accompanied that

aid— could be decisive to the future of American-Soviet relations. Yet in

this—as in so many other issues—Roosevelt gave little hint of the ultimate

direction he would take, creating one more dimension of uncertainty amidst

the gathering confusion that surrounded postwar international arrangements.

The final issue around which the Cold War revolved was that of the

atomic bomb. Development of nuclear weapons not only placed in human hands

the power to destroy all civilization, but presented as well the critical

question of how such weapons would be used, who would control them, and

what possibilities existed for harnessing the incalculable energy of the

atom for the purpose of international peace and cooperation rather than

destruction. No issue, ultimately, would be more important for human

survival. On the other hand, the very nature of having to build the A-bomb

in a world threatened by Hitler's madness mandated a secrecy that seriously

impeded, from the beginning, the prospects for cooperation and

international control.

The divisive potential of the bomb became evident as soon as Albert

Einstein disclosed to Roosevelt the frightening information that physicists

had the capacity to split the atom. Knowing that German scientists were

also pursuing the same quest, Roosevelt immediately ordered a crash program

of research and development on the bomb, soon dubbed the "Manhattan

Project." British scientists embarked on a similar effort, collaborating

with their American colleagues. The bomb, one British official noted,

"would be a terrific factor in the postwar world . . . giving an absolute

control to whatever country possessed the secret." Although American

advisors urged "restricted interchange" of atomic energy information,

Churchill demanded and got full cooperation. If the British and the

Americans worked together, however, what of the Soviet Union once it became

an ally?

In a decision fraught with significance for the future, Roosevelt and

Churchill agreed in Quebec in August 1943 to a "full exchange of

information" about the bomb with "[neither] of us [to] communicate any

information about [the bomb] to third parties except by mutual consent."

The decision ensured Britain's future interests as a world power and

guaranteed maximum secrecy; but it did so in a manner that would almost

inevitably provoke Russian suspicion about the intentions of her two major

allies.

The implications of the decision were challenged just one month later

when Neils Bohr, a nuclear physicist who had escaped from Nazi-occupied

Denmark, approached Roosevelt (indirectly through Felix Frankfurter) with

the proposal that the British and Americans include Russia in their plans.

Adopting a typically Rooseveltian stance, the president both encouraged

Bohr to believe that he was "most eager to explore" the possibility of

cooperation and almost simultaneously reaffirmed his commitment to an

exclusive British-American monopoly over atomic information. Meeting

personally with Bohr on August 26, 1944, Roosevelt agreed that "contact

with the Soviet Union should be tried along the lines that [you have]

suggested." Yet in the meantime, Roosevelt and Churchill had signed a new

agreement to control available supplies of uranium and had authorized

surveillance of Bohr "to insure that he is responsible for no leakage of

information, particularly to the Russians." Evidently, Roosevelt hoped to

keep open the possibility of cooperating with the Soviets—assuming that

Bohr would somehow communicate this to the Russians—while retaining, until

the moment was right, an exclusive relationship with Britain. Implicit in

Roosevelt's posture was the notion that sharing atomic information might be

a quid pro quo for future Soviet concessions. On the surface, such an

argument made sense. Yet it presumed that the two sides were operating on

the same set of assumptions and perceptions—clearly not a very safe

presumption. In this, as in so many other matters, Roosevelt appears to

have wanted to retain all options until the end. Indeed, a meeting to

discuss the sharing of atomic information was scheduled for the day FDR was

to return from Warm Springs, Georgia. The meeting never took place, leaving

one more pivotal issue of contention unresolved as the war drew to a close.

Conclusion.

Given the nature of the personalities and the nations involved, it was

perhaps not surprising that, as the war drew to an end, virtually none of

the critical issues on the agenda of postwar relationships had been

resolved. Preferring to postpone decisions rather than to confront the full

dimension of the conflicts that existed, FDR evidently hoped that his own

political genius, plus the exigencies of postwar conditions, would pave the

way for a mutual accommodation that would somehow satisfy both America's

commitment to a world of free trade and democratic rule, and the Soviet

Union's obsession with national security and safely defined spheres of

influence. The Russians, in turn, also appeared content to wait, in the

meantime working militarily to secure maximum leverage for achieving their

sphere-of-influence goals. What neither leader nor nation realized,

perhaps, was that in their delay and scheming they were adding fuel to the

fire of suspicion that clearly existed between them and possibly missing

the only opportunity that might occur to forge the basis for mutual

accommodation and coexistence.

For nearly half a century, the country had functioned within a

political world shaped by the Cold War and controlled by a passionate

anticommunism that used the Kremlin as its primary foil. Not only did the

Cold War define America's stance in the world, dictating foreign policy

choices from Southeast Asia to Latin-America; it defined the contours of

domestic politics as well. No group could secure legitimacy for its

political ideas if they were critical of American foreign policy,

sympathetic in any way to "socialism," or vulnerable to being dismissed as

"leftist" or as "soft on communism." From national health insurance to day

care centers for children, domestic policies suffered from the crippling

paralysis created by a national fixation with the Soviet Union.

Now, it seemed likely that the Cold War would no longer exist as the

pivot around which all American politics revolved. However much politicians

were unaccustomed to talking about anything without anti-communism as a

reference point, it now seemed that they would have to look afresh at

problems long since put aside because they could not be dealt with in a

world controlled by Cold War alliances.

In some ways, America seemed to face the greatest moment of possibility

in all of postwar history as the decade of the 1990s began. So much

positive change had already occurred in the years since World War II—the

material progress, the victories against discrimination, the new horizons

that had opened for education and creativity. But so much remained to be

done as well in a country where homelessness, poverty, and drug addiction

reflected the abiding strength that barriers of race, class, and gender

retained in blocking people's quest for a decent life.

Glossary:

Cold War - is the term used to describe the intense rivalry

that developed after World War II between groups of

Communist and non-Communist nations/ On one side

were the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR)

and its Communist allies, often referred to as the

Eastern bloc. On the other side were the United

States and its democratic allies, usually referred

to as the Western bloc. The struggle was called the

Cold War because it did not actually lead to

fighting, or "hot" war, on a wide scale.

Iron Curtain - was the popular phrase, which Churchill made to

refer to Soviet barriers against the West. Behind

these barriers, the USSR steadily expanded its

power.

Marshall Plan - encouraged European nations to work together for

economic recovery after World War II (1939-1945) /

In June 1947, the United States agreed to administer

aid to Europe in the countries would meet to decide

what they needed/ The official name of the plane was

the European Recovery Program. It is called the

Marshall Plane because Secretary of the State George

C. Marshall first suggested it.

Potsdam Conference -was the last meeting among the Leaders of Great

Britain, the Soviet Union and the United States,

during World War II. The conference was held at

Potsdam, Germany, near Berlin. It opened in July 17,

1945, about two months after Germany's defeat in the

war. Present at the opening were U.S. President

Harry S. Truman, British Prime Minister Winston

Churchill, and the Soviet Premier Josef Stalin.

Yalta Conference - was one of the most important meetings of key

Allied Leaders during World War II. These Leaders

were President Franklin D. Roosevelt of the United

States, Prime Minister Winston Churchill of Great

Britain, and Premier Josef Stalin of the Soviet

Union. Their countries became known as the "Big

Three". The conference took place at Yalta, a famous

Black Sea resort in the Crimea, from Feb. 4 to 11,

1945. Through the years decisions made there

regarding divisions in Europe have stirred bitter

debates.

The reference list.

1. William H. Chafe

"The Unfinished Journey: America since World War II" New York Oxford,

Oxford University press, 1991.

2. David Caute "The Great Fear", 1978

3. Michael Belknap "Cold War Political Justice", 1977

4. Allen D. Harper "The politics of Loyalty", 1959

5. Robert Griffin "The politics of Fear", 1970

6. James Wechler "The Age Suspicion" 1980

7. Alistair Cooke "A Generation on Trial", 1950

8. An outline of American History

9. World Book

10. Henry Borovik "Cold War", 1997

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