The entrance to the grand ballroom, the White Hall, more than forty yards long, was through handsome white Corinthian columns, past a huge white marble statue of Penelope. Seven tall French doors looking out on a courtyard ran the length of the room on the left, facing seven tall arched windows on the right looking out on the mountains. The ornate ceiling was punctuated by 280 well-concealed recessed lights that would discreetly turn on as the late afternoon meetings extended into the evening. At the far end of the ballroom, near a huge white marble fireplace, was the large round table around which the conference participants would sit. The table, covered by a beige cloth, was surrounded by banks of wooden chairs; in the inner bank were three armchairs reserved for the leaders. In front of each chair was a box of cigarettes and cigars. A brisk log fire crackled in the great fireplace.
Both FDR and Churchill were seated at the table by the time Stalin, followed by his advisers, walked into the room. Churchill rose to greet him; Stalin went to FDR to shake his hand.
Roosevelt always sat with his back to the fireplace. His advisers, who sat in the outer ring, were General Marshall, Admiral King, General Deane, General Laurence Kuter, U.S. Army Air Forces (in place of General Hap Arnold, recovering from a heart attack), and General McFarland in place of General MacArthur. Stalin’s delegation consisted of Admiral Kuznetsov, General Antonov, Air Marshal Khudyakov, and Vyshinsky. At this first meeting Hopkins was absent, too ill to attend, but he was present at all subsequent sessions.
The president always wore a business suit, either gray or blue, with a handkerchief peeking out from his breast pocket. Stalin and Churchill wore military uniforms, Churchill sometimes the uniform of a colonel, according to Stettinius, while Stalin wore a plain light khaki uniform that buttoned up high around his neck, with a star with a red ribbon on his left breast.
There was, obviously, no head to a round table, but if there had been, FDR would have sat there. Wherever he was, whether with U.S. personnel or with foreigners, with heads of state such as Churchill, whether in Washington, Quebec, Casablanca, or Tehran, FDR always presided over every group, everywhere, every time. Nor was it just governments that accorded him, as the American president, so much respect: ordinary people adored him. In the far reaches of the world he was larger than life. Carlo Levi, in those years a best-selling author, tells how, on entering a hovel—in a miserable village in godforsaken Calabria—in 1945, he saw on the wall a crucifix, a picture of the family’s absent son, and a picture of Roosevelt. His dominance was a fact FDR was conscious of and took for granted. On the evening he arrived at Yalta, as he was having dinner with his daughter, Anna, the Harrimans, Leahy, and Stettinius, FDR was particularly aware of his position: the only chief of state at the conference. Stettinius generously attributed the fact that he was smiling to his “rich sense of humor,” but the realization, as he observed that because he was the senior officer present, “people were going to come to see him,” obviously made FDR happy. It might have crossed his mind, for a fleeting moment…master of the world?
As the White Hall became silent and conversation at the round table ceased, with everyone seated, Stalin now, as host, spoke, to request that FDR preside. FDR stated that he was very happy to open such a historic meeting in such a lovely spot; he thanked Stalin for the effort expended in making it comfortable in the midst of war. He proposed that the talks be conducted in an informal manner in which each would speak his mind frankly and freely. Lest anyone in the room think him naive, ingenuous, or simply mouthing platitudes, he added that he had discovered through experience that the best way to conduct business expeditiously was through frank and free speaking. (He would undoubtedly have agreed with Emily Dickinson’s poem, however: “Tell all the truth but tell it slant.”)
Then, demonstrating his steady, optimistic frame of mind, in a comment primarily directed at Stalin, he said, “We understand each other much better now than we had in the past, and month by month our understanding grows.” (While this might have been true for himself and Stalin, it was at the same time a directive for Churchill, who, he hoped, was absorbing his words.) He then called for military assessments from each country; “military questions, particularly those on the most important front of all, the Eastern Front, should be the subject of discussion,” and in this casual way the conversation began, with Russia as the center of attention. He requested of Stalin that he have a staff officer give a detailed report.
Roosevelt had asked Stalin in late December to meet with an officer from Eisenhower’s staff to coordinate the efforts of the Red Army on the eastern front and the Allied armies on the western front. At that time Eisenhower’s armies were fighting the Battle of the Bulge, Hitler’s last offensive action of the war, while at the same time the Red Army had crossed the Vistula and was advancing toward Berlin. Stalin had wired back immediately, “Naturally, I agree with your proposal as well as I agree to meet the officer from General Eisenhower and to arrange an exchange of information with him.” The result had been that Air Marshal Arthur Tedder, Eisenhower’s deputy, and other officials from SHAEF, Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force, flew to Moscow and met with Stalin in his office in the Kremlin on January 15. Tedder had explained to the premier how the Germans were being pushed back to their frontier and shown him the various positions on maps. Stalin explained that only the lack of clear weather was holding his armies back from starting their offensive in aid of the Allied armies but that they would now advance in spite of the weather. “We have no treaty but we are comrades,” he told Tedder. “It is proper and also sound, selfish policy that we should help each other in times of difficulty. It would be foolish for me to stand aside and let the Germans annihilate you; they would only turn back on me when you were disposed of. Similarly, it is to your interest to do everything possible to keep the Germans from annihilating me.”
Stalin had been pleased with the exchange of information and with Tedder’s explanation of impending operations. As the conference wound up, he told Tedder, “That is what I like. A clear, businesslike statement, without diplomatic reservations.” To FDR, Stalin had written, “Mutual information is sufficiently complete. The exhaustive answers have been given on the matters in question by both sides. I should say that Marshal Tedder makes the most favorable impression.”
Building on this first genuine interchange of military information, the Russians came to Yalta prepared to match the session with Tedder in openness. Now, at Stalin’s bidding, General Antonov, deputy chief of the Soviet general staff, reading from a document, outlined the various Soviet military positions and the results of the Red Army offensive. He explained to the assemblage that Soviet forces had begun their January offensive earlier than planned—in heavy fog, in spite of extremely low visibility—in order to take pressure off the Allied soldiers who were pinned down and suffering casualties in the Ardennes, that in eighteen days of advance Soviet troops on the eastern front moved forward with an average speed of fifteen to eighteen miles a day, and that they were now, in some areas, on the Oder River.
When President Roosevelt inquired as to whether German railroad gauges had to be altered to accommodate Russian rolling stock, Stalin picked up from Antonov: “The greater part of the German railroad lines would remain of their customary gauge.”
Following Antonov’s presentation, General Marshall summarized the situation on the western front. The Germans had been repulsed in the Ardennes (“the German bulge in the Ardennes had now been eliminated”), the Allies were on the offensive in the southern sector of the line north of Switzerland, and Field Marshal Montgomery, commanding the British Twenty-First Army Group and the U.S. Ninth Army, was driving toward Düsseldorf. Plans were being finalized to cross the Rhine, but not until March 1 because of ice conditions and the strength of the current.
The conversation continued with General Marshall supplying information about the western front, Churchill asking for Russian help in the submarine war by taking out Danzig, where the submarines were built, and Stalin making longer and longer explanatory statements—detailed analyses of Russian tactics and troop movements and of German losses. He described how special Soviet artillery “break-through” divisions carrying from three hundred to four hundred guns operated. It became increasingly obvious that Stalin was indeed the knowledgeable, hands-on head of Russia’s military forces.
There was a jarring note. “What were the wishes of the Allies in regard to the Red Army?” Stalin asked, expansively. Churchill answered. He “wished to express the gratitude of England and he was sure of America for the massive power and success of the Soviet offensive.” The answer annoyed Stalin. He didn’t want gratitude for doing the right thing, he testily replied. “The Soviet Union was not bound by any agreement at Tehran to conduct a winter offensive,” he said, “and despite what some people had thought no demand or request had been received.” He mentioned this, he continued, “only to emphasize the spirit of the Soviet leaders…who acted on what they conceived to be their moral duty to their Allies.”
In spite of this interchange, Sir Alexander Cadogan, British undersecretary of foreign affairs, said of the day’s discussions, “I have never known the Russians so easy and accommodating. In particular Joe has been extremely good. He is a great man, and showed up very impressively…He’s obviously got a very good sense of humour—and a rather quick temper.”
As he had at Tehran, Churchill at times spoke as if he and FDR were a team. Now he mentioned “the complete confidence which the president and he felt in the Marshal.” Roosevelt, as at Tehran, did not return the compliment. If anything, this transparent habit of Churchill’s undoubtedly grated on Russian ears. That the Russians felt the difference between the two leaders was commented on by Gromyko, who was decidedly struck by Roosevelt’s friendliness and Churchill’s antagonism. Gromyko would recall, “While Roosevelt reacted to Stalin’s remarks calmly, even with understanding, Churchill did so with barely concealed irritation. The British prime minister tried not to show his feelings, but his cigars gave him away. He smoked far more of them when he was tense or excited. The number of his cigar stubs was in direct proportion to the stresses of the meeting. Everyone noticed it, and mocking remarks were made about it behind his back.”
The reverse was also true: Stalin’s antagonism toward Churchill was likewise apparent. “Stalin had a liking for Roosevelt,” observed Gromyko, “which could not be said about his attitude towards the British Prime Minister.” Gromyko saw it as political as well as personal: “The difference in attitude had to do with the politics.”
Roosevelt’s dinner followed this first plenary session. His Filipino mess staff from Shangri-La, the president’s wartime retreat on Catoctin Mountain, who also had only arrived the day before, managed to turn out and serve, with minimal help from the maître d’ and staff of the Hotel Metropol in Moscow, the group sent down to take care of Roosevelt’s needs, a dinner that included some American dishes such as chicken salad, southern fried chicken, and beef and macaroni, and some Russian fare: consommé, sturgeon, caviar, and hot vegetables. (So important was FDR’s diet to his health that Harriman had notified Molotov that the president would eat food brought in from the USS Catoctin that would be cooked by his own staff.) Five kinds of wine plus vodka and Russian champagne provided the fodder for the usual numerous toasts. The dinner was in what had been Nicholas’s chestnut-paneled billiard room; on one wall hung a Russian winter scene, on another a portrait of the tsar. The Americans: Stettinius, Harriman, Byrnes, and Bohlen; the British: Eden, Archibald Clark Kerr, and Birse; and the Russians: Molotov, Vyshinsky, Gromyko, and Pavlov were present. For a change, possibly because his hands shook more than usual, FDR did not make the cocktails, as he usually did. (All his life FDR had episodes of heightened tremor. In late 1942, Mackenzie King had noted in his diary that when the president poured him some tea in his office, “his hand was very shaky.” As he got older, people would attach more significance to his tremor.)
The mood among the diners was indeed convivial. Molotov and Stettinius drank toasts to each other. When Molotov said he hoped that Stettinius would soon visit Moscow, FDR “immediately interjected, ‘Ah-ha, he wants him to go to Moscow. Do you think Ed will behave in Moscow as Molotov did in New York?’ ” Roosevelt was a great teaser, according to Stettinius, and was suggesting that the Secret Service men assigned to show Molotov the sights in 1942 had taken him around theaters and shops and to nightclubs as well. Stalin happily replied, “He could come to Moscow incognito.” Stalin, who was, Stettinius noted, smoking Lucky Strikes, asked FDR whether he had actually sent a cable asking for five hundred bottles of Russian champagne but then said—postwar credits for Russia obviously very much on his mind—he “would give it to the president on a long-term credit of thirty years.” The ice was broken, but FDR decisively switched the subject, replying, “There is one thing I want to tell you. The prime minister and I have been cabling back and forth for two years now, and we have a term of endearment by which we call you, and that is ‘Uncle Joe.’ ” Stalin asked what it meant. FDR repeated that it was a term of endearment, “as though he were a member of the family.” Stalin appeared to be offended, although FDR had called him Uncle Joe to his face the last day at Tehran. At this point Molotov stepped in to say no one should be deceived: “He is just pulling your leg. We have known this for two years. All Russia knows that you call him ‘Uncle Joe.’ ”
As the dinner drew to a close, Stalin, in a reference to the difference of opinion about the veto in the Security Council, put forth the idea that the three great powers who had liberated the small powers from German domination should have the unanimous right to preserve the peace of the world. “It was ridiculous to believe,” he said, “that Albania would have an equal voice with the three Great Powers…He would never agree to having any action of any of the Great Powers submitted to the judgment of the small powers.”
FDR genially agreed that the three great powers “represented at this table” should write the peace. After a bit of discussion, Churchill made a toast to the proletarian masses of the world, then gave a graceful quotation: “The eagle should permit the small birds to sing and care not wherefore they sang.”
At some point Vyshinsky turned to Bohlen and said that Americans “should learn to obey their leaders and not question what they were told to do.” Bohlen retorted he “would like to see him go to the United States and tell that to the American people.” Vyshinsky grinned and replied he would be glad to go.
Stettinius noted, as the toasts went on, that Stalin was being careful to stay sober, drinking down half the vodka in his glass at each toast, then refilling it with water when he thought no one was looking. (Vyshinsky was noted doing the same thing.) The atmosphere was so friendly that FDR called for more champagne to be served, and when Stalin suggested at 10:00 that it was time to leave, that he had to return to his military duties, FDR said no. Stalin thereupon said he would stay until 10:30, but he actually stayed until after 11:00.
The days were consumed with meetings. The three foreign ministers met each day at noon at each palace in succession (unlike their bosses, who always deferred to FDR and let him run their meetings, Eden, Molotov, and Stettinius took turns presiding, and the venue changed to the presiding minister’s residence). They conferred through lengthy lunches about the various matters that had been discussed at the previous day’s plenary session. Each afternoon Stettinius, Eden, and Molotov would meet and brief their heads of state. The generals and admirals also met each day to coordinate war plans.
The second plenary session began at 4:00 p.m. FDR opened the session by stating that the subject matter under discussion would be the political aspects of the future treatment of Germany. The first question to be discussed, he said, was the zones of occupation, which had been agreed upon by the three of them, leaving the question of whether France should or should not have a zone of occupation and, if so, if it should sit on the Allied Control Commission. He handed a map of the zones to Stalin.
Stalin stated that he wanted a number of issues settled as to the future of Germany: All had been in favor of dismemberment at Tehran, were they still? Would each set up a separate government? “If Hitler surrendered unconditionally would we deal with his government?” In addition, he brought up the question of reparations.
FDR replied that the treatment of Germany, as he understood it, would grow out of the zones of occupation. Stalin replied that he wished to find out whether or not it was the joint intention to dismember Germany: “If Germany is to be partitioned, then in what parts…At Tehran FDR suggested partition into five parts…The prime minister in Moscow talked of partition in two parts…Hadn’t the time come for decision?”
Churchill answered, saying that in principle the British government agreed to dismemberment, but the actual method was much too complicated a matter to settle in four or five days. If he were asked how Germany should be divided, he would not be in a position to answer, “and for this reason he couldn’t commit himself to any definite plan for the dismemberment of Germany.” Eliminating Prussia from Germany “would remove the arch evil—the German war potential would be greatly diminished…We are agreed that Germany should lose certain territories conquered by the Red Army which would form part of the Polish settlement,” but there was the question of the Rhine, the industrial areas of the Ruhr; all required careful study. But now, he concluded, “all that was required was a final agreement on zones of occupation and the question of a zone for France.”
Stalin replied that the surrender wasn’t clear to him: “Suppose, for example, a German group declared they had overthrown Hitler and accepted unconditional surrender. Would the three governments deal with the group?”
Churchill said in that case Britain would present the terms of surrender. It would not negotiate with Hitler or Himmler. The three allies would consult together before dealing with any group and then immediately submit the terms of unconditional surrender. Would it not be wise to add a clause then, saying that Germany would be dismembered, without going into details? asked Stalin. He didn’t think dismemberment an additional question. But Churchill thought it unnecessary to discuss with the Germans, “only among themselves…there was not sufficient time…it was a problem that required careful study.” But Stalin wanted the matter clarified.
As the two bickered, FDR stepped in to change the tenor of the dialogue. They were both talking about the same thing, he said soothingly: Stalin meant that they should agree on the principle of dismemberment, which he personally favored, as he had stated at Tehran. Then he digressed—one of his favorite methods of tamping down personality clashes, giving everyone time to settle back while he talked. Dismemberment would reverse a historic trend, he reminisced: forty years earlier, when he was in Germany, German communities dealt with their provincial government—for instance, if in Bavaria, one dealt with the Bavarian government, and if in Hesse-Darmstadt you dealt with that government; only recently had everything become centralized. Winding up, he said that he still thought the division of Germany into five or seven states was a good idea.
Or fewer, interrupted Churchill, with which FDR agreed.
The prime minister went on to say that he didn’t think there was any need to inform Germans of policy: they must surrender and then await their decision. FDR, saying public discussion of the problem of dismemberment would be a great mistake, suggested the matter be referred to the foreign ministers, with a request that they submit a recommendation as to how to handle the issue and report back to them in twenty-four hours. But Stalin had more to say before the matter was dropped; he wanted dismemberment clearly laid out: Germany was threatened with internal collapse because of the lack of bread and coal. Such rapid developments made it imperative that the three governments not fall behind events but be ready to deal with the question when the German collapse occurred. He said he fully understood the prime minister’s difficulties. He felt the president’s suggestions might be acceptable and summarized them as follows: (1) agree in principle that Germany should be dismembered; (2) refer the matter to the foreign ministers; (3) add to the surrender terms a clause stating that Germany would be dismembered without giving any details.
FDR said he shared Marshal Stalin’s idea of the advisability of informing the German people at the time of surrender of what was in store for them. Churchill, again disagreeing, stated his view that it would make the Germans fight harder. FDR and Stalin said there was no question of making the decision public. At this point the conversation stopped as all three agreed to turn the matter over to the foreign ministers and let them determine how to include a reference to the intention to dismember Germany into article 12 of the terms of surrender.
Roosevelt then turned their attention to the issue of adding a French zone of occupation to their own three zones. Churchill assured Stalin that if there were a French zone, it would come out of the British and American zones and it would not affect the proposed Russian zone: all he sought at Yalta was that the Soviet government would agree that the British and American governments should have the right to work out with the French the latter’s zone of occupation. Stalin probed as to whether or not granting a zone to France would not serve as a precedent for other countries. Churchill’s answer and explanation for the request was that Britain needed help: the occupation might be a lengthy one. Britain was not sure it could bear the burden alone; France could be of real assistance. But, he added, tripartite control of Germany might then change to four-nation control.
But a fourth power in the control machinery for Germany might bring up complications, said Stalin. He suggested instead that the British get help from France or Holland or Belgium, without any right to participate in the three-power decisions. At this point Churchill revealed what lay behind his stand: he said Britain needed France to play a very important role; as the largest naval power, France could be of great help in the administration of Germany; Great Britain did not wish to bear the whole weight of an attack by Germany in the future; it was essential that France be relied upon to assist in the long-term control of Germany. Also, he added, Britain needed France because it was problematical how long U.S. forces would remain in Europe.
As they discussed the addition of France, Stalin smiled, saying that “this was an extremely exclusive club, restricted to a membership of nations with five million soldiers. Churchill quickly corrected him and said three million.”
Stalin interrupted to ask FDR to express an opinion as to how long U.S. troops would be staying in Germany. Not much more than two years, the president replied: “I can get the people and Congress to co-operate fully for peace but not to keep an army in Europe for a long time. Two years would be the limit.” (There was already a groundswell of public opinion demanding the return home of U.S. forces when the war was over; it was a continuing concern of General Marshall’s.) Churchill continued: France should have a large army; it was Britain’s only ally and would help Britain share the burden. France should come in; he wanted to see its might grow to help keep Germany down.
FDR agreed with Churchill: France should have a zone, but he thought it a mistake to bring in any other nation.
If France were included in the control machinery, it would be difficult to refuse other nations, said Stalin, repeating that he wished to see France a strong power. But, he continued, that could not destroy the truth—which was that France had contributed little to the war and had opened the gate to the enemy. He therefore thought the control machinery should be run by those who have stood firmly against Germany and have made the greatest sacrifices in bringing victory.
Churchill agreed that France had not been much help in the war, but, he said, it still remained Germany’s nearest neighbor: in the future it would stand guard on the left hand of Germany. Eden said the French had pressed them to be on the Allied Control Commission. Stalin admitted they had raised the question in Moscow.
FDR pulled the discussion to a close, saying he favored the French request for a zone. But he agreed with Stalin that they should be excluded from the control machinery, otherwise other countries—such as the Dutch, suffering because the Germans had destroyed the dikes and inundated Dutch farmland with saltwater and at least five years must pass before the flooded lands would be suitable for cultivation—might claim a voice in the Allied Control Commission.
Said Stalin, Britain should speak for France on the Allied Control Commission: French participation would serve as a precedent for others. He had the last word, noting that there was agreement that France should have a zone but not be on the Allied Control Commission and that the three foreign ministers should study the problem and report back.
Stalin then said he wanted to discuss the question of reparations. Earlier that day, at the foreign ministers’ luncheon at the Yusupov Palace in Koreis, as Molotov and Stettinius had discussed reparations from Germany, Molotov had taken the opportunity to express the hope Russia would receive long-term credits from America. He expected this to be relayed to FDR. As Molotov had been told in January, FDR had authority from Congress to extend credits only during the life of the Lend-Lease Act: Congress would have to pass a new act for long-term (postwar) credits. Discussions and planning should begin; Stettinius told Molotov at the lunch that he was ready to discuss the matter “either here or later in Moscow or Washington.”
FDR was well briefed on the subject of reparations. At Stettinius’s request, the head of the OSS, William Donovan, had prepared an estimate of Soviet war damages for the purposes of discussion. The OSS finding was that Russia had lost approximately $16 billion of fixed capital in 1937 prices—25 percent of its capital—not counting manufacturing inventories and personal property, which the OSS fixed at $4 billion. (In the western part of Russia alone seventeen hundred cities and towns had been destroyed.)
Roosevelt opened the discussion by saying that besides themselves there was the question of the desires and needs of the small powers, the question of manpower, and the question of what Russia wanted. He said America did not want reparations in the form of labor, “and he was sure Great Britain held the same view.”
Stalin replied, “We have a plan for reparations in kind but we are not ready to talk about manpower.” At this point Hopkins, possibly getting restless, wrote a note he slid over to FDR, referring to Russia’s manpower needs: “Why not take all Gestapo-Nazi storm troopers and other Nazi criminals?” FDR ignored it.
Stalin instructed Maisky to present Russia’s plan.
Maisky, attractive and forceful, spoke perfect English. He had been the Russian ambassador to Britain and in London had become friends with George Bernard Shaw and H. G. Wells before being called back to Moscow to work out the program of Russia’s reparations demands. Maisky explained that the Soviet Union envisioned reparations being in two forms: transfer of (German) factories, plants, machinery, machine tools, and rolling stock abroad, which should terminate two years after the war, and yearly payments in kind for a period of ten years; the most important industries to be nationalized under Allied supervision for a period of ten years. To safeguard the future security of Europe, he continued, it would be necessary to reduce German heavy industry by 80 percent: Germany’s economic needs could be met with 20 percent of its heavy industry. All German enterprises that could be utilized for war purposes should be subject to representatives of the three powers. Priorities among countries should be established, based on their proportional contribution and their losses. As to Russian losses, he said, the figures were so astronomical that reparations could not cover them. He closed with the exact amount Russia wanted: not less than $10 billion of total reparations in kind over a ten-year period.
Churchill made a long speech objecting: he didn’t like the idea of reparations, particularly expressed in dollars. He discussed how difficult it had been in the last war to extract anything from Germany. While admitting that Russian losses were much greater than those of any other country, he touched on how Britain had suffered, how the British government had disposed of the bulk of its assets abroad. He said no victorious country was so burdened in an economic sense as Great Britain, and he very much doubted that large reparations from Germany would benefit the British Isles. He was haunted by the specter of a starving Germany: “If you wished a horse to pull a wagon, you would at least have to give it fodder.”
Stalin “observed that was right, but care should be taken to see that the horse did not turn around and kick you.”
Roosevelt interrupted to calm them both down. After the last war the United States had lost a great deal of money; it had lent more than $10 billion to Germany. This time it would not repeat its past mistakes. Germany should live but not have a higher standard of living than the U.S.S.R. He was in favor of extracting the maximum in reparations from Germany but not to the extent that its people would starve. He would help the Soviet Union retain the reparations in kind it needed, as well as German manpower to reconstruct devastated regions: he envisioned a Germany that would be self-sustaining but not starving.
Maisky threw out some figures: “What is ten billion dollars? It is 10% of the United States budget this year. It is six months war expenditure of Great Britain. It is one and one quarter times the United States peacetime budget and two and one quarter times the British each year.” The prime minister’s doubts are unfounded, he said. Germany will be able to live a decent life, and we must not forget that it will have no burden of military expenditures.
Churchill, ignoring the reparations figures, agreed on setting up a reparations commission but said it should be kept secret. Stalin agreed: it should be kept secret.
Stalin brought up France: it could not expect to get reparations, he stated; it only had eight divisions in the war, whereas Yugoslavia had twelve and the Lublin government thirteen.
The three leaders agreed that the main directives to a committee on reparations would be decided and clarified by the foreign ministers at their next meeting but that there would be a reparations commission that would sit in Moscow. The session ended at 7:45 p.m. The three leaders retired to their quarters for the evening.
FDR had a relaxed dinner in his quarters with Marshall, King, Stettinius, Leahy, McIntire, Byrnes, Brown, Steve Early, Kathleen and Averell Harriman, and his daughter, Anna, and then retired. “It was,” according to Stettinius, “purely a family dinner at the end of a hard day.”
Stalin worked on a different time frame, arising late in the day and working through the night into the early hours of the morning. His staff by necessity adjusted their lives to his. As head of his country’s armed forces, he spent a great deal of time with his generals, particularly General Antonov, to formulate war plans, learn the latest battle news, and view recent film footage brought in from the various fronts. Stalin made it a point to talk with the members of his delegation most evenings to check their assessment of the day’s conversations and held at least one cocktail party for his staff at which he greeted each of the more than fifty people by name, asked and answered questions, and was remembered by Gromyko as listening attentively to the replies. Gromyko recounted one such query he got from Stalin, probably because he thought he had made an impression on his leader. “What are the main social elements that Roosevelt can count on for support inside his country?” Stalin asked him. Gromyko remembered summing up his thoughts and answering, “His domestic policies may encroach to some extent on the interests of large monopolies, and right-wing extremists sometimes make the absurd accusation that he is sympathetic to socialism, but it’s only a propaganda ploy by people who don’t want the USA to have good relations with the USSR. At the moment, Roosevelt as president has no rival. He feels secure.” Gromyko felt that his words had an impact on Stalin because he spoke knowledgeably as the ambassador to America; he felt he had added to Stalin’s esteem of and reliance on the president.
Once, when FDR felt poorly and took to his bed, Stalin went to visit him, taking along Molotov and Gromyko. “We sat with him,” recalled Gromyko, “for maybe twenty minutes, while he and Stalin exchanged polite remarks about health, the weather, and the beauties of the Crimea.” After they left, Stalin asked, rhetorically, “Why did nature have to punish him so? Is he any worse than other people?”
Breaking the pattern he had set at Tehran of not socializing with the prime minister (having, he must have felt, set his relationship with Stalin on a firm footing), FDR invited Churchill, together with Sir Alexander Cadogan, to have lunch with him in his dining room at the Livadia Palace, joining Byrnes, Hopkins, and Harriman. FDR amiably kept the conversation off politics. “Quite agreeable and amusing,” recorded Cadogan of the lunch, “but not awfully useful.”
Meanwhile, the foreign ministers, meeting at the Livadia Palace, had lunch in the palace sunroom, with its big bay window looking out over the sea below.
During the day Stalin telephoned Marshal Zhukov, according to Marshal Vasili Chuikov, author of The End of the Third Reich, who heard both sides of their telephone conversation because he happened to be sitting close to Zhukov at the moment it took place. “Where are you, what are you doing?” Stalin asked Zhukov. Zhukov replied, “I am at Kolpakchi’s headquarters, and all the Army Commanders of the Front are here too. We are planning the Berlin operation.” Realizing that that meant they were only some forty miles from Berlin, Stalin replied, “You are wasting your time. We must consolidate on the Oder and then turn all possible forces north, to Pomerania to join with Rokossovsky and smash the enemy’s ‘Vistula’ group.” By this conversation Stalin delayed Russia’s entry into Berlin: he must have made the decision because he thought the specter of the huge Red Army sweeping into Berlin would look frighteningly aggressive to FDR and particularly to Churchill, always suspicious of him.
At 4:00 p.m. the third plenary session began. Seated with FDR were Bohlen, Stettinius, Hopkins, Byrnes, Leahy, and Harriman. Stalin’s group was down to six: Molotov and Maisky, Gusev, Gromyko, Pavlov, and Vyshinsky. Stalin was smoking Russian cigarettes. Churchill was seated between Eden and his interpreter, Major Birse.
FDR asked if the foreign ministers, who met each day at lunch, had anything to report. Stettinius, chair for the day, replied that he could report “full agreement” to the insertion of the word “dismemberment” after the word “demilitarization” in the German surrender terms but that Molotov had an additional phrase he wanted to put in. Molotov’s suggestion at the meeting had been the addition of the sentence “In order to secure peace and security of Europe, they will take measures for the dismemberment of Germany.” He now replied (obviously having taken it up with Stalin) that he was withdrawing his proposed words.
Stettinius reported that the foreign ministers needed more time to deal with the subjects of France, the Allied Control Commission, and reparations.
Churchill, speaking of the French zone and reflecting the view of each of them that German aggression was going to remain a threat, said that the knowledge that U.S. troops would be going home in two years made France more important: “Great Britain alone would not be strong enough to guard the western approaches to the Channel.”
Roosevelt saw an opportunity to point up the importance of the United Nations. He said that when he had spoken of the troops, he had spoken “on the basis of present conditions.” With the formation of the international organization the American public “might change their attitude in regard to the question of maintaining troops in Europe.” He then launched into a discussion of the plans for the international organization agreed to at Dumbarton Oaks. He said he was not as optimistic “as to believe in eternal peace, but he did believe fifty years of peace were feasible and possible.” He asked Stettinius to explain the U.S. position on voting in the Security Council, which was still a bone of contention. Stettinius outlined the voting proposal FDR had sent to Stalin and Churchill in December. (“Procedural matters” meant what subjects could be brought up for discussion.)
1. Each member of the Security Council should have one vote.
2. Decisions of the Security Council on procedural matters should be made by an affirmative vote of seven members.
3. Decisions of the Security Council on all other matters should be made by an affirmative vote of seven members including the concurring votes of the permanent members; provided that, in decisions under Chapter VIII, Section A, and under a second sentence of paragraph 1 of Chapter VIII, Section C, a party to a dispute should abstain from voting.
Stettinius pointed out that the proposal called for unqualified unanimity of the permanent members on all major decisions relating to the preservation of peace, including all economic and military enforcement measures: at the same time any member state would have the right to present its case, thus protecting the crucial freedom of discussion for all parties. He closed with the statement “It is our earnest hope that our two great Allies will find it possible to accept the President’s proposals.”
Stalin had said the first evening that he would never agree to having any action of any of the great powers submitted to the judgment of the small powers. As FDR knew from Gromyko’s reaction at their breakfast meeting in September, this was a very touchy subject to the Russians. Stalin had also written to him on the subject in late December; he wouldn’t agree to any restriction on the use of a nation’s veto: “I have, to my regret, to inform you that with the proposed by you wording of this point I see no possibility of agreeing.” Now Stalin merely asked if there was anything new in the statement—any change from the voting proposal FDR had sent to Stalin and Churchill in December. When Stettinius said there had been a minor drafting change, Molotov said that he needed time (“wished to study” the change) and would be ready to discuss it the next day.
Churchill had also been having a problem with the veto and the voting procedure. At FDR’s dinner the first night, after Stettinius had heard Eden trying to explain it to the prime minister, Stettinius explained it to Churchill at length. Eden had later admitted to Stettinius it was the first time the prime minister realized what the question was all about.
Churchill, since then firmly in the president’s camp, now stated that he found the president’s new proposals on voting entirely satisfactory: if reservation were not made for free statement of their grievances by small countries, the matter would look as though the three great powers were trying to rule the world. He launched into a long statement of how a matter such as China’s demand that Britain return Hong Kong would be handled: China could raise the question, but in the last analysis Great Britain would be protected by the veto under paragraph 3.
Stalin probed. Would Egypt be a member of the assembly? Suppose Egypt raised the question of the return of the Suez Canal?
Churchill didn’t like the question. He replied that he hoped the marshal would let him finish his illustration about Hong Kong. He continued that under paragraph 3, Great Britain would have the right by its veto to stop all action by the Security Council. Britain didn’t have to return Hong Kong; however, China should have the right to speak, and so should Egypt, if it had a complaint about the Suez Canal. He then, however, expanded into America’s position, saying that the same considerations would apply if Argentina raised a complaint against the United States.
After this non sequitur FDR stepped in to remind them of what they had said at Tehran regarding their supreme responsibility to make a peace that would command goodwill from the overwhelming masses of the peoples of the world.
Stalin wasn’t ready to agree on the voting procedure: he announced he wanted to have the document to study, giving the excuse that hearing it orally, he found it impossible to catch all of the implications. But then, by his questions, it was obvious that he was not comfortable with the assurances that the veto power of the permanent members of the council would sufficiently protect the Soviet Union. He now said he didn’t believe any nation would be satisfied with simply expressing its opinion. The Dumbarton Oaks proposals already gave the right of discussion in the assembly: China would want more than to express an opinion on Hong Kong; China would want a decision, and the same was true of Egypt.
Stalin’s annoyance at Churchill now surfaced: he digressed. “What powers had Mr. Churchill in mind when he spoke of a desire to rule the world…He was sure Great Britain had no such desire, nor did the United States and that left only the U.S.S.R…. It looks as though two Great Powers have already accepted a document which would avoid any such accusation but that the third has not yet signified its assent.” He then, echoing FDR’s choice of words, said that ten years from now none of them might be present and there was, therefore, an obligation to create for future generations an organization that would secure peace for at least fifty years. The main thing was to prevent quarrels in the future between the three great powers: a covenant must be worked out that would prevent conflicts between the three great powers.
Stalin again said he had less than perfect understanding of the voting issue. Stettinius would later write that it wasn’t that Stalin was uninformed on the subject, that in fact he had given rather careful study to the question and hadn’t yet made up his mind. Now Stalin brought up the League of Nations in 1939, when, at the instigation of England and France, which had mobilized world opinion against the Soviet Union, it had been expelled from the organization.
FDR, realizing that nothing would be gained by continuing on the subject, stepped in to close the discussion. The last word was his: there was no means of preventing discussions in the assembly; full and friendly discussions in the council would serve to demonstrate the confidence the great powers had in each other.
There was then a short break. When they reconvened, FDR rather tentatively suggested they move on to Poland, as they had agreed to do the previous day, and so began the most contentious discussion on the Yalta agenda: the future of Poland.
Stalin had broken off relations with the Polish government in exile in London as a result of that government’s call for investigation of the Katyn massacre. The Soviet Union now recognized the new de facto government, the so-called Lublin or Warsaw government, also called the Polish Committee of National Liberation, that had taken over the administration of Poland. The United States and Britain continued to recognize the government in exile in London.
FDR plunged in, beginning the discussion with two ideas, both of which Stalin disagreed with. Said FDR, as the eastern frontier there was tentative agreement on the Curzon Line, to which the American people were in general favorably inclined, as he had so stated at Tehran, but he raised the suggestion that Stalin now bend the line and give Lvov and the oil lands southwest of Lvov to Poland. He softened the request, saying he wasn’t making a definite statement, but he hoped Marshal Stalin would make the gesture. Before Stalin had a chance to reply, FDR went on to the second idea, saying that opinion in the United States was against recognition of the Lublin government on the ground that it represented a small portion of the Polish people: people want a government of national unity and, he added, a Poland that will be thoroughly friendly to the Soviet Union for years to come. Stalin said that Poland should maintain friendly relations not only with the Soviet Union but with the other Allies.
Roosevelt said solving the Polish question would be a great help to everyone; he didn’t know any members of either government, but he had met Stanisław Mikołajczyk (head of the Polish Peasant Party, formerly head of the London government in exile), who impressed him as a sincere and honest man.
Churchill spoke next, saying the Curzon Line was not a decision of force but one of right. Having delivered this conciliatory idea, however, he threw out a challenge to Stalin: he wanted to see the Poles have a home where they could organize their lives as they wished, saying it was the earnest desire of the British government that Poland be mistress in its own house and captain of its soul. It must not be forgotten, he said, that Great Britain had gone to war to protect Poland, had no material interest in Poland, but the question of its future was one of honor.
At this warning to Stalin to keep his hands off the Polish people, Stalin suggested a ten-minute intermission: he must have wanted to collect his thoughts.
When they resumed, Stalin was obviously angry. He rose from his chair and, remaining standing, spoke in a quietly controlled voice as he marshaled his arguments:
Mr. Churchill had said that for Great Britain the Polish question was one of honor…but for the Russians it was a question both of honor and security. It was one of honor because Russia had many past grievances against Poland and desired to see them eliminated. It was a question of strategic security…because throughout history Poland had been the corridor for attack on Russia…During the past thirty years Germany twice has passed through this corridor…Poland was weak. Russia wants a strong, independent and democratic Poland. It is not only a question of honor for Russia but one of life and death.
Still standing, Stalin then addressed the border issue:
It is necessary to remind you that not Russians but Curzon and Clemenceau fixed this line…The line was established against their will. Lenin had opposed giving Bialystok Province to the Poles but the Curzon Line gives it to Poland. We have already retreated from Lenin’s position…Should we then be less Russian than Curzon and Clemenceau? We could not then return to Moscow and face the people…I would prefer to have the war go on although it will cost us blood in order to compensate for Poland from Germany.
Stalin continued, pointing out that there had been a good chance for fusion between the various parties in the fall and that in the meeting between Mikołajczyk, Stanisław Grabski, and the Lublin Poles, various points of agreement were reached.
Roosevelt and Churchill remained silent.
The fact was many members of the Polish government in exile, holdovers from the pre-1939 government that had been pro-German, openly talked of the next war against Russia. Harriman, who, even though he had become increasingly annoyed at Russian stubbornness, had explained the problem to FDR in late March 1944: “They are terrified of Germany coming back and are unwilling to have a Polish government that might follow a Beck policy of alliance again with Germany.” There was no doubt the émigré group, the Polish government in exile, which both Britain and the United States had recognized, was pro-German. Anthony Eden also saw the émigré government as untrustworthy: “Privately they say that Russia will be so weakened and Germany crushed that Poland will emerge as the most powerful state in that part of the world.” As the Poles continued squabbling among themselves, it was almost inevitable that as the Red Army liberated Poland, it would put into power Poles who would do its bidding.
Stalin had first written to FDR about Poland the previous February. Then he had carefully edited a cable, pointing out (the edit is in his handwriting) that the principal role of the Polish government in exile “is played by hostile to the Soviet Union pro-fascist imperialist elements,” citing the historically anti-Russian general Kazimierz Sosnkowski, commander in chief of the Polish armed forces in the West, as the prime example. Stalin had had the idea that Polish Americans might serve as political ballast in a new Polish government and requested that two Poles living in America, Father Stanislaus Orlemanski, a Catholic pastor, and Oskar Lange, a professor of economics at the University of Chicago, both of whom considered the Polish government in exile insufficiently democratic, be granted passports so they could come to Moscow. He met with both men because he hoped patriotic American Poles such as Lange would take part in the government, Lange to become director of foreign affairs. Both he and Molotov thought that a Polish government containing Americans would ensure a government friendly to the Soviet Union. Stalin told Lange, in his desire that Lange become a Polish citizen, “Cooperation and understanding between the Soviet Union, the United States, and Great Britain was not a matter of expediency but was being established on firm and permanent lines.”
There were some reasonable men in the émigré government in London, Stalin had acknowledged. The premier, Stanisław Mikołajczyk, head of the Polish Peasant Party, was one. The best, most reasonable man in the government, he was not anti-Soviet, but he did not control the other members of the government. FDR had met with him at the White House, after which he had advised Stalin to meet him, writing, “He [Mikołajczyk] is fully cognizant that the whole future of Poland depends upon the establishment of genuinely good relations with the Soviet Union.” After reading a special GRU tape of the FDR-Mikołajczyk meeting that clearly showed the president supporting Stalin’s position vis-à-vis the Poles (quite possibly leaked by the State Department), Stalin also met with Mikołajczyk. The GRU report read,
During the visit of the Polish prime minister to Washington, Roosevelt insisted on the removal from the Polish government of the anti-Soviet elements of Sosnkowski’s group, as well as on agreeing by the Poles to the border along the Curzon Line. He also insisted that the [Polish] government enter into working contact with the Polish patriots in Moscow and the Polish divisions in the eastern front…Mikołajczyk agreed to act in the spirit of Roosevelt’s suggestion, however, only in case of complete support by the Polish émigré circles in London.
Reassured again of FDR’s support, Stalin had written FDR shortly after D-day that he hoped for a strong, independent, and democratic Poland, with a government of Polish statesmen from England, America, the U.S.S.R., “and especially democratic statesmen in Poland itself and also…the Curzon Line as the new border between the USSR and Poland.” But in the meantime, as the Red Army beat back the Germans and entered Poland, the Russian government set up the Polish Committee of National Liberation to administer the government.
As had been the case in 1939, Poland continued to be tragically ill-served by its principal statesmen. Mikołajczyk and his government argued about which of two Polish constitutions should be recognized: the constitution of 1921 or the severely authoritarian one adopted in 1935. They argued over boundaries; there was talk of a Polish civil war. In August, Stalin wrote to FDR that possibly the Polish groups were beginning to work together; the Polish Committee of National Liberation offered Mikołajczyk the post of premier and four portfolios out of eighteen: “Both the Polish National Committee and Mikolajczyk expressed the wish to work together…One may consider this as the first stage in relations between the Polish Committee and Mikolajczyk and his colleagues. We shall hope that the business will go better in the future.” It didn’t. It was in every way a difficult situation. The Warsaw uprising made things worse. When the Red Army reached the east bank of the Vistula in late July 1944, instead of aiding the woefully outnumbered and ill-equipped Warsaw patriots who had risen up to fight the Nazis and were desperately trying to free their capital by themselves, the Red Army ground to a halt. As became known only later, the Germans threw four new armored divisions into the battle. Marshal Konstantin Rokossovsky, commander of the First Belorussian Front, himself a Pole born in Warsaw, told Stalin the army had no choice but to fall back. Looking for information, Alexander Werth, the unusual BBC journalist who remained in Russia throughout the war, found and interviewed Rokossovsky a few days later. “Wasn’t the Warsaw rising justified?” he asked. “No, it was a bad mistake…[T]he rising would have made sense only if we were on the point of entering Warsaw,” answered Rokossovsky.
As a result of Rokossovsky’s decision, while the world watched in horror, the German army proceeded to kill or wound nearly 250,000 Poles and level what was left of Warsaw. Churchill tried, enlisting FDR’s tepid support, to have Allied planes drop supplies into the beleaguered city. In September, after agreeing to some aid for Warsaw, Stalin characterized the situation to the effect that it was like some dirty face helping to disgrace a fair face. Harriman, among others, was upset with Stalin at the time, thinking it a callous, calculated act, but he later realized things were not as they seemed, some twenty years later admitting as much to Arthur Schlesinger. He then said, of the uprising, it “was the London Poles thinking they could put it over on the Russians by seizing Warsaw.” Mikołajczyk, who could not persuade his cabinet to agree to Stalin’s borders, was replaced by a minister who “made the situation even worse and created a precipice between Poland and the émigré government,” Stalin advised FDR.
Now, at Yalta, Stalin charged, the London government was sending agents into Poland to harass the Red Army as it moved through Poland, had killed 212 military men, attacked supply bases, and set up radio stations in violation of regulations. “We will support the government which gives us peace in the rear.”
Roosevelt decided to give Churchill the last word before they broke up. The British and Soviet governments have different sources of information, said Churchill. He could not feel that the Lublin government represented more than one-third of the people, nor would it be maintained in power if the people were free to express their opinion. “The British government could not agree to recognizing the Lublin government of Poland,” he concluded.
FDR had begun the session, and Churchill had ended it, by telling Stalin that they would not recognize the Lublin government, but Stalin had made a powerful presentation.
It was 8:00 p.m. when the session adjourned. Each leader retired to his residence for the evening. Roosevelt had a quiet dinner with his daughter, Anna, Byrnes, Leahy, Harriman, Harriman’s daughter Kathleen, Early, and Ed Flynn. Hopkins remained in his bedroom. Later FDR met with Bohlen to discuss a final draft of a message to Stalin about Poland that he wanted Stalin to read before the next day’s plenary session. FDR had sent Hopkins and Stettinius to Paris, Rome, Naples, and London in late January to take the temperature of Europe, to make sure there were no surprises in store at Yalta, and to keep Churchill on message. In London, Hopkins had soothed Churchill’s ruffled feathers over a variety of issues where FDR had overruled him. The United States and Britain were at loggerheads over Italy. Churchill wanted King Victor Emmanuel on the throne; Roosevelt didn’t, writing to the prime minister, “The old gentleman, I am told, only clicks before lunch.” They also differed on Count Carlo Sforza as Italy’s foreign secretary. FDR’s anticolonial stance also worried Churchill. And, the crowning blow, FDR had refused Churchill’s request to spend more than one day at Malta.
While Hopkins calmed Churchill, Bohlen had met at the Polish embassy with Mikołajczyk, who proposed as a solution an interim governmental committee consisting of prominent Poles who had remained in Poland and prominent Poles who had fled. FDR liked the idea and set Stettinius, Bohlen, and Hopkins to refine the proposal so he could present it to Stalin as a finished idea. In their evening meeting Bohlen showed FDR the final draft:
My dear Marshal Stalin: I want to tell you in all frankness what is on my mind…I am greatly disturbed that the three great powers do not have a meeting of minds about the political setup in Poland. It seems to me that it puts all of us in a bad light…to have you recognizing one government while we and the British are recognizing another…I am sure this state of affairs should not continue and that if it does it can only lead our people to think there is a breach between us, which is not the case. I am determined that there shall be no breach between ourselves and the Soviet Union. Surely there is a way to reconcile our differences.
You must believe me when I tell you that our people at home look with a critical eye on what they consider a disagreement between us at this vital stage of the war. They, in effect, say that if we cannot get a meeting of minds now when our armies are converging on the common enemy, how can we get an understanding on even more vital things in the future…
… We cannot recognize the Lublin government as now composed…I suggest we invite here to Yalta at once Mr. Bierut and Mr. Osóbka-Morawski from the Lublin government and also two or three from the following list of Poles, which according to our information would be desirable as representative of the other elements of the Polish people in the development of a new temporary government which all three of us could recognize and support: Bishop Sapieha of Cracow, Vincente Witos, Mr. [Zygmunt] Zurowski, Professor [Franciszek] Buyak, and Professor [Stanisław] Kutzeba.
If to those were added Polish leaders from abroad such as Mr. Mikolajczyk, Mr. Grabski and Mr. Romer, the United States Government, and I feel sure the British Government as well, would then be prepared to examine with you conditions under which they would dissociate themselves from the London government and transfer their recognition to the new provisional government…
It goes without saying that any interim government which could be formed as a result of our conference with the Poles here would be pledged to the holding of free elections in Poland at the earliest possible date. I know this is completely consistent with your desire to see a new free and democratic Poland emerge from the welter of this war.
The letter was dispatched to Stalin.
In the morning FDR worked over the latest White House mail, brought by a courier the previous evening. At noon he conferred with Hopkins, Harriman, Byrnes, and Bohlen in his study. He then lunched with his daughter, Ed Flynn, and Pa Watson.
Stettinius, Eden, and Molotov met at the Yusupov Palace. The army of landscape workers had done an incredible job bringing back the formal gardens to their original state. Stettinius remarked on their beauty, on the statues and pools. Then he and Eden and Molotov worked over the various issues they had been given by the plenary session.
FDR opened the plenary session a few minutes after 4:00 p.m., stating that in regard to the Polish question he did not attach any importance to the continuity or legality of any Polish government, because “there hasn’t really been any Polish government since 1939. It is entirely in the province of the three of us,” he said, “to help set up a government—something to last until the Polish people can choose.” He then turned the meeting over to Molotov to give the summary of matters he, Eden, and Stettinius had worked on earlier at the Yusupov Palace.
Molotov stated that they had agreed that France would have a German zone of occupation, that he and Stettinius wanted the European Advisory Commission to decide whether France should participate in the Allied Control Commission, but that Eden disagreed, wanting France placed on the Allied Control Commission right away. Next, Molotov reported that it had been decided that a reparations commission consisting of a representative from each of the three allies be formed, that it work out a detailed plan, and that it be located in Moscow.
The conversation then returned to the previous day’s discussion of the ramifications of giving France a zone in Germany. Churchill gave a long speech. He was “unconvinced” that the French could be given a zone without becoming a member of the Allied Control Commission; such a situation “would cause endless trouble. If we were strict in our zones, they might be lenient in theirs, and vice versa.” French participation wouldn’t mean they could attend a conference such as Yalta, he continued. Churchill forcefully said that the matter of whether the French should be part of the Allied Control Commission should be settled before the conference ended. FDR, trying to avoid conflict, spoke of postponing the decision for two or three weeks instead of two or three days, but Churchill pointed out that once they separated, a decision would be more difficult.
Stalin backed FDR. The three governments had been able to settle a good many things by correspondence, he said. FDR then said he agreed with Stalin that France should not join the foreign ministers.
Then the president suggested they talk further about Poland. Stalin stated that he had received FDR’s message suggesting that they invite two representatives from the Lublin government and two representatives from other Polish groups to Yalta and work out with them the holding of free elections in Poland. He said he had tried to reach the Lublin Poles by telephone and was not successful. As for the others, Witos and Sapieha, he doubted they could be located in time to come to Yalta. Because, he continued, Molotov was working on some proposals that appeared to approach the president’s suggestions, but they had not yet been typed out, he suggested that Molotov give the Soviet view on Dumbarton Oaks, knowing full well that what Molotov was going to report would make FDR very happy.
Molotov thereupon announced that subsequent to Stettinius’s explanations of the president’s proposals, and Churchill’s remarks, the Soviet government now felt that these proposals fully guaranteed the unity of the great powers in the matter of preservation of peace. They were entirely acceptable: there was full agreement on the subject. They accepted the veto in the Security Council.
The convoluted announcement that Stalin had agreed to the veto meant the moment had finally come to call for the convening of a conference to set up the United Nations.
However, following this extremely welcome news, Molotov continued with the unwelcome news that the Soviet Union wanted the admission of the Ukraine, White Russia, and Lithuania as members of the General Assembly.
Without giving FDR a chance to speak about the issue of the veto, Molotov continued his argument regarding extra votes for the Soviet Union, launching into a discussion of the dominions of the British Commonwealth that had gradually and patiently achieved their places as entities in international affairs. It was only right, therefore, that three, or at least two, of these Soviet republics find a worthy place among the members of the assembly. He repeated that he fully agreed with the president’s proposals and withdrew any objections or amendments but would request that at least two of the Soviet republics be given a chance to become equal members of the world organization.
FDR wrote a note that he passed to Stettinius: “This is not good.”
FDR thereupon made the longest speech he had made at the conference. Stalin had just given him an unexpected gift, a great gift, he said, in agreeing to accept that a veto in the Security Council could not be invoked as regards the agenda. As he thought through his response, he touched on the various ramifications of such an action. He started by saying that acceptance of the voting formula was a great step forward. The next step was summoning a conference to set up the United Nations, possibly at the end of March, or possibly within the next four weeks. Then, comparing the different governmental structures of Britain, America, and Russia, he said that Molotov’s suggestion should be studied, particularly in the light of the possibility that if the larger nations were given more than one vote, it might prejudice the thesis of one vote for each member. He touched on Brazil, larger than America but smaller in population, Honduras and Haiti, small in area but large in population. He then brought up other countries associated with the United Nations that had broken relations with Germany but were not at war. The important thing, he felt, was to proceed with plans for a conference and at the conference consider the question of nations not members of the United Nations. The foreign ministers should work it out.
However, Churchill now proceeded to undermine the president, exhibiting his antagonism to a world government to preserve peace, in a statement that also exposed his basic racism: Great Britain, he said, could not agree to any organization that would reduce the status of the dominions or exclude them from participation. His heart went out to mighty Russia, and he could understand its point of view, as it was represented by one voice in comparison with the British organization, which had a smaller population, if only white people were considered. But, he said, he could not exceed his authority, and as he had just heard this proposal, he would like to discuss it with the foreign secretary and possibly communicate it to London.
Roosevelt, momentarily at a loss for words, said his recommendations were somewhat different: he had merely meant that the foreign ministers should study the proposal, as well as the time and place, and decide who should be invited.
Churchill attacked again. He was against holding a meeting so soon, he said: he foresaw difficulties in a March meeting; the battle would be at its height; he doubted whether representatives would be able to give it full thought. He was as negative as he diplomatically could be. (Eden would later write that Churchill had spoken up against the proposed conference at the foreign ministers’ meeting earlier in the day.)
FDR calmly replied that he had only in mind an organizational meeting; the world organization itself would probably not come into being for from three to six months after the conference.
Churchill again argued against the idea, on the grounds that some nations would still be under the German yoke, represented by governments in exile; other countries were starving and in misery, such as Holland; other countries had not suffered at all in the war. How could such a gathering really undertake the immense task of the future organization of the world?
Because Churchill’s opposition was so strong and so unexpected, while he talked, Hopkins scrawled a hasty, ungrammatical note to FDR saying, “All of the below refers to Churchill’s opposition to early calling of conference of United Nations. There is something behind this talk that we do not know of its basis. Perhaps we better to wait till later tonight what is on his mind.” FDR scrawled back, “All this is rot! local politics.” Hopkins then wrote, “I am quite sure now he is thinking about the next election in Britain.”
FDR thereupon, in his low-key way, keeping control, contented himself with repeating his proposal having to do with the basic formation of the United Nations Conference: the foreign ministers should consider the Soviet proposal regarding membership, the date and place of the conference, and what nations should be invited.
Churchill, saying he must emphasize that it was not a technical matter but a matter of great decision, agreed reluctantly.
Stalin, who for a change had been on the sidelines because the debate was between FDR and Churchill, now supported FDR, remarking that the foreign ministers would not make decisions but merely report back on the conference.
It was time for a short intermission for light refreshments—which probably all three needed.
When they reconvened, Churchill proposed that the foreign ministers consider the question of Iran. Roosevelt made a short speech about Iran and what he had seen there during the Tehran Conference and then, having said his piece, gave the floor to Molotov for his proposals on the Polish question.
Molotov then read the Soviet position:
1. The Curzon Line should be the eastern frontier with a digression in some regions of five to eight kilometers in favor of Poland.
2. The western frontier should extend from Stettin and farther to the south along the river Oder and then the river Neisse.
3. Some democratic leaders from Polish émigré circles should be added to the Polish Provisional Government.
4. The enlarged Polish Provisional Government should be recognized by the Allies.
5. The Polish Provisional Government should call the population of Poland to the polls for organization by general voting.
6. Molotov, Harriman, and Clark Kerr were entrusted with the discussion of the question of enlarging the Polish Provisional Government and submitting their proposals to the consideration of the three governments.
Molotov then said that they had been unable to reach the Poles in Poland by telephone: time would not permit summoning them to the Crimea as the president wished.
Roosevelt said he felt progress had been made but that he didn’t like the word “émigré” in the proposal, on the grounds that you could find enough Poles in Poland for the purpose. He repeated that he didn’t know any of the London Poles except Mikołajczyk: he asked for an opportunity to study Molotov’s proposals with Stettinius. Stalin agreed.
As Churchill began to speak, FDR scribbled to Stettinius, “Now we are in for 1/2 hour of it.” Building on FDR’s objection to “émigré,” Churchill said he shared the president’s dislike of the word, but for him it meant a person driven out of a country—he didn’t like to use it. He then evinced worry over moving Polish frontiers too far to the west, saying that it would be a pity to stuff the Polish goose so full of German food that it got indigestion. Stalin remarked, wryly, that most Germans had already run away. Churchill then announced that he had another comment: a reference in Molotov’s proposal should be made to other democratic leaders from within Poland itself. Stalin agreed, and the words “and from inside Poland” were added to the end of paragraph 3. The meeting adjourned.
FDR dined at 8:30 at Livadia with his daughter, Anna, Harriman, Kathleen Harriman, Byrnes, Leahy, and Stettinius. Later, privately, he explained to Stettinius that he believed Stalin felt a vote for the Ukraine in the General Assembly was essential because his position in the Ukraine was difficult and insecure. He also explained his own reasoning: the most important things were to maintain unity, defeat Germany, “and then get them all around a table to work out a world organization.” He closed by reminding Stettinius that the real power was in the Security Council and each country in that body had only one vote. After all, what practical difference would it make to the success or failure of the assembly for the Soviet Union to have two additional seats?
Much later, when FDR had retired, Stettinius, mulling over where the April 25 conference should be, turned over in his mind Chicago, Cincinnati, Hot Springs, and Miami. But when he presented his ideas to FDR the next day, “none of these places quite clicked in Roosevelt’s mind…He asked me to study the matter further, come up with a better suggestion, saying,…‘We haven’t hit it yet.’ ”
FDR had a late morning meeting with Harriman, Bohlen, Hopkins, and Byrnes and lunched alone with Anna in his study. Later in the afternoon he was scheduled to meet privately with Stalin.
The matter of the Soviet Union having three votes in the General Assembly now took an unexpected turn. Stettinius was in FDR’s study in the afternoon, briefing him on what had taken place at the foreign ministers’ meeting earlier in the day. He had found himself, he told FDR, odd man out in opposing the idea, because Eden, wanting seats for the dominions and India, had backed Molotov’s position of seating the Ukraine and White Russia. FDR said, “Somehow or other we would now have to accept the proposal.” Stettinius, not entirely agreeing, was in the process of telling FDR that he had not backed down, the matter was not yet settled, when, at 3:45, Stalin walked in. “We have had good agreement at the Foreign Minister’s meeting,” the secretary of state had just finished saying to FDR, as Stalin arrived. Stalin immediately inquired whether there had been agreement on the extra seats question. Then, according to Stettinius, FDR “waved his hand and told Stalin that agreement had been reached on everything.” Stalin asked, “Even on the extra votes?” Before Stettinius could answer, FDR said yes. Stettinius blamed himself for the confusion: he had not been quick enough on his feet. But his hands were tied; the deed was done. He left.
THE PURPOSE OF THE MEETING with Stalin was to discuss Soviet entry into the war against Japan. Present were Harriman, who had worked with Stalin on the various details since the previous October, Bohlen, Molotov, and Pavlov.
Roosevelt opened the meeting by saying that with the fall of Manila, the time had come to establish new air bases and begin intensively bombing Japan, thereby possibly avoiding the actual invasion of the Japanese islands, thus saving American lives.
Before the meeting, the Joint Chiefs had sent a memo under FDR’s name asking Stalin two questions: “Is it essential that a supply line be kept open across the Pacific to Eastern Siberia? Will U.S. bases be permitted to operate from Komsomolsk-Nikolaevsk or some other suitable area in the Maritime Province?”
Stalin now replied that he had no objection to bases at Komsomolsk and Nikolaevsk, but Kamchatka would have to be left to a later stage in view of the presence there of a Japanese consul. FDR then handed two more memos to Stalin, one having to do with American use of airfields in the vicinity of Budapest, the other a request for U.S. experts to view bombing damage in enemy territory now held by the Red Army. Stalin said he would give the necessary orders.
The intrusion of U.S. personnel in Red Army vicinities was one of the least desirable requests from the Soviet point of view: it automatically raised Russian hackles. Stalin could not refuse FDR’s request, but he could, and did, immediately ask for a quid pro quo: “Mr. Stettinius had told Mr. Molotov there was a possibility that the United States would have surplus shipping property after the war which might be sold to the Soviet Union.”
FDR replied that a change of legislation would be necessary but that he hoped surplus shipping could be transferred on credit without any interest. He then added a sweetener: the ships could be transferred for a fixed sum on credit that would include the cost of the ship less depreciation; in twenty years the entire credit would be extinguished. FDR said, further, that he hoped the Soviet Union would interest itself in a large way in the shipping game.
Stalin, not surprisingly, thought the idea was a very good one, that it would ease the task of the Soviet Union in the future, and volunteered the thought that Lend-Lease was a remarkable invention, that in former wars some allies had subsidized others but this had offended the allies receiving the subsidies. Lend-Lease, however, produced no such resentment, and he called it an extraordinary contribution.
FDR, pleased, answered that he had dreamed up the idea while cruising on the Potomac: he had thought and thought of a way to help the Allies and at the same time avoid the difficulties inherent in loans and had finally hit upon the scheme.
With FDR in such a generous mood, Stalin took the occasion to name his price: the political conditions under which the U.S.S.R. would enter the war against Japan.
All Americans, not just the U.S. military, were horrified by the bloody viciousness and fanaticism of the Japanese they had witnessed during the winter. When U.S. forces invaded Tarawa in the Gilbert Islands, they were attacked by 2,563 Japanese soldiers who all, except for eight taken prisoner, fought to the death. It was the same story with the Japanese soldiers defending the Marshalls and Kwajalein: Japanese soldiers were choosing to fight to the death rather than surrender; their death rate was averaging more than 98 percent, which meant huge U.S. fatalities. But it was when U.S. troops landed on Saipan, the largest island in the Marianas, where there were twenty thousand Japanese civilians, that America learned that Japanese civilians were as fanatic as their soldiers. U.S. troops could only watch as mothers, gripping their children’s hands, fathers throwing their children before them, leaped off the cliffs into the sea rather than surrender. The intense battle over Saipan, particularly, made Americans dread the upcoming U.S. invasion of the home islands, knowing Japan would fight to the last man, in the process killing as many Americans as they could, which meant U.S. casualty rates were going to be huge. General MacArthur estimated that a million Americans would die in just the first phase, the invasion of Kyushu, the southernmost island, planned for November 1. D-day would be a picnic compared with the invasion of Japan. The desire for Russian help became intense for the obvious reason that if the Red Army entered the war, fewer American soldiers would die. The Joint Chiefs of Staff, as well as Marshall and Leahy individually, therefore, for the better part of a year, had been strongly advising Roosevelt that Soviet entry into the war against Japan was an absolute necessity. The memos kept coming across his desk. “We should make every effort to get Russia into the Japanese war before we go into Japan, otherwise we will take the impact of the Jap divisions and reap the losses, while the Russians in due time advance into an area free of major resistance,” advised MacArthur. “I will not consider going into any part of the Japanese islands unless the Japanese armies in Manchuria are contained by the Russians.” Two weeks before Yalta, an official memo came from the Joint Chiefs: “The Chiefs of Staff suggest that Marshal Stalin be asked that necessary administrative steps be taken to make collaboration between the U.S. and U.S.S.R. work more efficiently and rapidly and that he also be asked to state what inefficiencies and delays his own people have experienced in working with the U.S.” Five days later the Joint Chiefs underlined the urgency to FDR with another memo: they were “working towards the U.S.S.R. entry into the war against Japan…Russia’s entry at as early a date as possible consistent with her ability to engage in offensive operations is necessary to provide maximum assistance to our Pacific operations.”
Another memo specified exactly what FDR should tell Stalin at Yalta:
a. We desire Russian entry at the earliest possible date consistent with her ability to engage in offensive operations.
b. We consider that the mission of Russian Far Eastern Forces should be to conduct an all-out offensive against Manchuria to force the commitment of Japanese forces and resources in North China and Manchuria that might otherwise be employed in the defense of Japan.
Japan was Russia’s historic enemy. Stalin had introduced William Bullitt, America’s first ambassador to the Soviet Union, to Marshal Alexander Egorov, Soviet chief of staff, in 1934 as “the man who will lead our Army victoriously against Japan when Japan attacks.” The only time Stalin was ever seen drunk was when, ecstatically relieved, he was packing off the Japanese foreign minister at the train station after negotiating the Japanese-Soviet Nonaggression Pact of April 13, 1941.
Gaining back what Russia had lost to the Japanese in the Treaty of Portsmouth was now his goal. He knew that earlier in the year Roosevelt had publicly announced to the Pacific War Council, the gathering of ambassadors and heads of state of nations fighting Japan in the Pacific, exactly what he was going to give Russia:
Japan should be stripped of their island possessions…that Russia, having no ice-free port in Siberia, is desirous of getting one and that Marshal Stalin looks with favor on making Dairen a free port for all the world, with the idea that Siberian exports and imports could be sent through the port of Dairen and carried to Siberian territory over the Manchurian railroad in bond. He agrees that the Manchurian Railway should become the property of the Chinese government. He wishes all of Sakhalin to be returned to Russia and to have the Kurile Islands turned over to Russia in order that they may control the straits to Siberia.
The Kuriles were the connecting chain of forty-seven islands extending from Hokkaido, Japan, in the south, to the Russian peninsula of Kamchatka, in the north. Russia had ceded the Kuriles to Japan in 1875; the islands controlled passage into the Sea of Okhotsk and Russia’s eastern shoreline.
Complementary motives governed the conversation between the two leaders: the U.S. desire to assure Russian entry into the Japanese war to save American lives; the Soviet Union’s desire to regain the territory Japan had taken away from it in 1905, plus the Kurile Islands, and, equally important, to be party to the destruction of Japan’s dreams of empire. Japan’s acquiescence in this rearrangement of its possessions was considered irrelevant by both parties: Roosevelt, alone, had the power to draw boundaries because it was necessary to the U.S. war effort to bring the Soviet Union into the war; the Senate would not see it in the same light as drawing Poland’s boundaries after the Red Army had liberated Poland.
U.S. war plans called for an American invasion of Japan in November. That meant, given the logistics involved, Roosevelt and Stalin had to come to an agreement immediately. In fact, Roosevelt and Stalin had been working on the assumption that Russia would enter the war since Tehran; for months massive amounts of U.S. Lend-Lease material had been secretly moving across Siberia to arm the Soviet forces that would face the Kwantung army.
The question for Roosevelt was, would Stalin settle for the return of what Russia had lost to Japan in the Treaty of Portsmouth, or would he seriously push for the Kurile Islands, which were without a doubt choice real estate? The U.S. Navy was eyeing them, intrigued with the idea of establishing a base in the islands, possibly under the aegis of the United Nations, although it is not clear whether FDR had been apprised of this.
Roosevelt had told the Pacific War Council that Stalin wished to have all of Sakhalin and the Kurile Islands, but he hadn’t said he agreed that Stalin should have them. But on the other hand, why should Japan? The massacre at Palawan six weeks earlier was fresh in American minds: in that appalling incident the Japanese had marched 150 American POWs—soldiers—into a trench on the Philippine island, poured gasoline into it, and incinerated the men: one had escaped to tell the tale.
Soviet spies had obtained and Stalin had read a State Department memo recommending that neither the southern part of Sakhalin nor the southern part of the Kurile Islands be ceded to Russia. The memo must have raised the level of Stalin’s concern: he had no idea if it had influenced FDR, or if, indeed, FDR had even seen it. Stalin knew what he wanted; he had no assurance he would get it. Probably FDR was not sure himself.
Why should Russia enter the war? It had to be offered a valuable carrot. Stalin knew beyond a doubt that America was stronger than Japan and that it was now simply a matter of time and planning before U.S. forces invaded the Japanese home islands. It wasn’t a matter of necessity that made getting Russia into the war so important to U.S. war planners and to FDR: it was a matter of lessening the number of Americans who would die in the process. The atomic bomb was not yet ready and therefore could not be counted upon. The matter came down to enlisting Russian fighting forces to spare American lives.
There were several reasons for Stalin to enter the war: for territorial gain and for the prospect of future aid, reparations, and peaceful relations with America. Both men had need of each other.
Now, as they talked, was Stalin’s moment of truth. He said he and Ambassador Harriman had already conversed about the political conditions under which he would agree to enter the war. Roosevelt, of course, knew every word they had spoken at their meeting in the Kremlin on December 14. He had, in fact, ordered Harriman to meet with Stalin to find out what, exactly, was his price, and it had been relayed to him. As Stalin and Harriman had talked, Stalin had gone into the next room, brought out a map, and said to Harriman, “The Kurile Islands and Lower Sakhalin should be returned to Russia.” Then Stalin had drawn a line around the southern part of the Liaodong Peninsula, including Port Arthur and Dairen, and told Harriman, “The Russians wished again to lease these ports and the surrounding area…wished to lease the Chinese-Eastern Railway [in Manchuria]…he specifically reaffirmed his intention not to interfere with the sovereignty of China in Manchuria.” It was with relief that FDR had learned that Stalin had no designs on Mongolia, that he wanted Mongolia to remain “an independent entity.” FDR had had seven weeks to think about it.
Roosevelt held no brief for Japan. Why should he? On balance, as the aggressor, Japan deserved to lose land, as did Germany. Without preamble, FDR gave Stalin his answer, saying he had received a report of this conversation: there would be no difficulty whatsoever with the southern half of Sakhalin and the Kurile Islands going to Russia; in regard to a warm-water port in the Far East, they had discussed that point at Tehran, and he had then suggested that the Soviet Union be given the use of a warm-water port at possibly Dairen. He went on to say that either Russia could outright lease Dairen from the Chinese, or Dairen could be a free port under some form of international commission. He added that he preferred the latter method because of Hong Kong: he hoped the British would give back the sovereignty of Hong Kong to China and that it would become an internationalized free port. He said he knew Churchill would have strong objections to this suggestion.
Stalin, not rising to the bait, brought up the Manchurian railways; he wanted the rail lines the tsars had had. FDR replied that there were two ways of achieving that: to lease them, or to create a commission composed of one Chinese and one Russian.
Stalin wanted every i dotted, every t crossed. “It is clear that if these conditions are not met it would be difficult to explain to the Soviet people why Russia was entering the war against Japan. They understood clearly the war against Germany, which had threatened the very existence of the Soviet Union. But they would not understand why Russia would enter a war against a country with which they had no trouble.” Roosevelt replied that he had not yet spoken about this to Chiang Kai-shek because anything said to the Chinese was known to the whole world in twenty-four hours. Stalin replied that it wasn’t necessary to speak with the Chinese yet. Then, changing the subject, he said, “It would be well to leave here with these conditions set forth in writing agreed to by the three powers.” FDR agreed. Stalin suggested that it wouldn’t be time to speak to the Chinese until twenty-five Soviet divisions could be freed from Europe and moved to the Far East. He ended with the comment that in regard to the question of a warm-water port, the Russians would not be difficult, and he would not object to an internationalized free port.
In the space of a few minutes the two had come to an understanding.
Roosevelt thereupon moved the conversation to the subject of Korea. He “had in mind” that Soviet, American, and Chinese representatives should form a trusteeship and based on the Philippines, which it had taken about fifty years to prepare for self-government, that the Korean trusteeship might be for a period of twenty to thirty years. Stalin replied that the shorter the period, the better. FDR, in his continuing campaign to distance himself from British policy, then slyly brought up what he called a delicate matter: he did not feel it was necessary to invite the British to participate in the Korean trusteeship, “but he felt they might resent this.” Stalin replied, in another light moment, that they would most certainly be offended. “In fact,” he said, “the Prime Minister might kill us.” The British should be invited.
FDR then brought up Indochina. He also had in mind a trusteeship for it, although he knew again that the British did not approve, as it might affect Burma, part of the British Empire. FDR described the Indochinese as “people of small stature, like the Javanese and Burmese…not warlike.” He then repeated a thought he had voiced many times over many years: “France had done nothing to improve the natives since she had the colony.”
FDR next touched on de Gaulle, whom both disliked. He told Stalin that de Gaulle had asked him for ships to transport French troops to Indochina. “Where was De Gaulle going to get the troops?” Stalin asked. De Gaulle said he was going to find the troops when he could find the ships, replied FDR, and then added in another light moment, “up to the present I have been unable to find the ships.”
FDR then spoke of China: “For some time we had been trying to keep China alive.” Stalin dryly replied that in his opinion China would remain alive. He did say, however, that there needed to be some new leaders around Chiang Kai-shek, that although there were some good people in the Kuomintang, he did not understand why they were not brought forward. FDR informed Stalin of steps he had taken: General Albert Wedemeyer and General Patrick Hurley, America’s new ambassador, were “making progress in bringing the Communists in the north together with the Chungking government.” He virtually agreed with Stalin about the lack of leadership: “The fault lay more with the Kuomintang and the Chungking Government than with the so-called Communists.” Stalin replied that he didn’t understand why they didn’t get together and present a united front against the Japanese. “Chiang Kai-shek should assume more leadership.” Stalin was not that fond of either Chinese side, being no fonder of Mao Tse-tung than of Chiang. He occasionally called Chinese Communists “margarine Communists,” according to Harriman’s secretary, Robert Meiklejohn.
The conversation stopped. They had already run a bit over their time. From start to finish the meeting, each word of which was necessarily repeated by the interpreters, only took a little over half an hour. In that brief time the two leaders pretty well settled the Far East. Neither Molotov nor Harriman spoke a word, according to Bohlen’s minutes.
When Admiral King, chief of naval operations, was informed that the Russians would definitely enter the fight against Japan, he was immeasurably relieved, commenting, “We’ve just saved two million Americans.”