Chapter 49: Feb 1945 Roosevelt, Churchill, Stalin Meet at Yalta

“Stalin then brought up the question of reparations in kind and in manpower, but said he was not ready to discuss the manpower question. The latter, of course, referred to forced labour. Since the Russians were using many thousands of prisoners in what was reported to be virtual slave camps, they had little to gain by discussing the matter ... The proposal in brief was: Reparations in kind should include factories, plants, communication equipment, investments abroad, etc., and should be made over a period of ten years, at the end of which time all reparations would have been paid. The total value of the reparations in kind asked by the Soviet was 10 billion dollars, to be spread over the ten-year period ... Churchill objected to the 10 billion-dollar figure, and he and Roosevelt agreed that a reparations committee should be appointed to study the issue.”

Comments made by William Leahy, Roosevelt’s Chief of Staff on the Yalta Conference.

In February 1945, Stalin, Roosevelt and Churchill met in order to discuss the post war scenario. De Gaulle was conspicuous by his absence from the meeting. None of the participants seemed to miss him or his caustic manner of addressing all issues as if he were the leader of the free world and not a military puppet with very little diplomatic expertise in international affairs.

The conference was held in Yalta on the north side of the Black Sea on the Crimean Peninsula.

There is very little dispute that Stalin was the star of this show with Churchill lamenting the weaknesses in the British Empire and with Roosevelt in great pain from his long lasting illness that gave him little respite physically and he allowed his advisors to do most of the work. At this time in 1945, the Soviet Union was sweeping across Eastern Europe gaining control of every country previously taken by Hitler in his run for glory that fell far short of defeating the Russians at their own game. The Americans fought for the concession that these countries would be allowed to vote for their leaders after the war but it was obvious to one and all that the “Iron Curtain” would soon be falling across the entire continent of Europe as soon as the surrender was complete. They were unable to sway Stalin from his complete control of Poland because he feared their industrial strength and the fact that they were the buffer he needed to keep possible invaders away from the Soviet Union proper.

One area in which they all agreed was the going forward with a concept of a United Nations for the establishment of a World-wide control system. Stalin insisted on having the Soviet Union as a permanent seat on the Security Council and with right of veto over any decision made with regard to international disputes.

Churchill later wrote of his inability to influence the Americans on post-war activities because Roosevelt wanted Stalin to know he was not siding with the British against the Soviet Union without due process of each “hot spot” being considered separately with diplomatic discussion in every case. It has been speculated that this lack of clarity in future diplomatic relations was fostered by Roosevelt’s dislike of “Colonial” projects still found in countries like Britain, France and Spain. Of course, the war in the Pacific was not as yet in the final stages and Roosevelt wanted Stalin’s promise to participate as soon as victory was declared in Europe.

To some extent, it can be argued that the Korean War and the Vietnam War were both the result of this lack of clarity and both were the expression of the need for Communist expansionism to fill the void of the Colonial withdrawals fomented by the Yalta Conference. Of course, Russian Communism and Chinese Communism were not identical but they were still reluctant bedfellows against the economic successes of Western style capitalism in many second and third world countries.

Churchill was quite depressed for some time after the Yalta Conference because he was able to foresee the eventual breakup of the British Empire and the coming struggle with the strident Soviet Union with the same expansionary plans that had started Hitler down the road to absolute ruin for Germany. He probably knew that De Gaulle had outsmarted them all with his nationalistic plans for France that didn’t include any “Allied” projects to influence their independent post-war re-building.

Roosevelt was more restricted by his declining health as each day passed and yet he still kept Vice President Harry Truman out of the loop on most of the day-to-day operations of the war because of the advice of his inner circle. He relied mostly on the war department to run the course of the war and allowed Eisenhower and MacArthur to organize the strategy that eventually would end the war successfully.

Only Stalin was truly the winner of the Yalta Conference because he had managed to browbeat the other allies into accepting his control over Eastern Europe and had rejected their pleas to allow Poland to have the right to self-determination. He had even managed to force the other allies to follow through on their promise to allow him to move his Red Army all the way to Berlin while they paused and regrouped on the western front. That allowed him to make the claim that the Soviet Union was the winner of the “Great Patriotic War” and that the other allies were merely a sideshow of little or no significance. Of course, this propaganda line was readily accepted inside the Soviet Union because the people were starving for some justification for their years of suffering and during the wartime period.

The western press was unusually quiet during this closing phase of the war with regard to the Soviet Union because Communist influences in all western media from films to newspapers was rampant in the allied countries. They also had great influence in workers circles with regard to Unions and the ability to use strikes to gain political advantage during peacetime.

Post war investigations also included a look at the American State department for Communist infiltration as well as the British Foreign Office activities on behalf of the Soviet Union.

The rumors about the secret agreements made at Yalta were a subject of discussion at the highest levels during the so-called “McCarthy Era” that started to investigate the infiltration of Communist thought in all facets of American government and media entertainment to brainwash the public to accept progressive and socialistic ideas as a precursor to full Communist ideology.

Perhaps the full truth of what went down at Yalta will never be known but it is important to understand that much of what happened after the war was attributable to the agreements made behind closed doors.