U.S. - Soviet relations
Graduation
Paper
on theme:
U.S. -
Soviet relations.
Contents.
Introduction. 3
Chapter 1: The Historical
Background of Cold War. 5
1.1 The Historical Context. 5
1.2 Causes and
Interpretations. 10
Chapter 2: The Cold War
Chronology. 17
2.1 The War Years. 17
2.2 The Truman Doctrine. 25
2.3 The Marshall Plan. 34
Chapter 3: The Role
of Cold War in American History and Diplomacy. 37
3.1 Declaration of the Cold War. 37
3.2 Сold War Issues. 40
Conclusion. 49
Glossary. 50
The reference list. 51
Introduction.
This
graduation paper is about U.S. - Soviet relations in Cold War period. Our
purpose is to find out the causes of this war, positions of the countries which
took part in it. We also will discuss the main Cold War's events.
The Cold War
was characterized by mutual distrust, suspicion and misunderstanding by both
the United States and Soviet Union, and their allies. At times, these
conditions increased the likelihood of the third world war. The United States
accused the USSR of seeking to expand Communism throughout the world. The
Soviets, meanwhile, charged the United States with practicing imperialism and
with attempting to stop revolutionary activity in other countries. Each block's
vision of the world contributed to East-West tension. The United States wanted
a world of independent nations based on democratic principles. The Soviet
Union, however, tried control areas it considered vital to its national
interest, including much of Eastern Europe.
Through the
Cold War did not begin until the end of World War II, in 1945, U.S.-Soviet
relations had been strained since 1917. In that year, a revolution in Russia
established a Communist dictatorship there. During the 1920's and 1930's, the
Soviets called for world revolution and the destruction of capitalism, the
economic system of United States. The United States did not grant diplomatic
recognition to the Soviet Union until 1933.
In 1941,
during World War II, Germany attacked the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union then
joined the Western Allies in fighting Germany. For a time early in 1945, it
seemed possible that a lasting friendship might develop between the United
States and Soviet Union based on their wartime cooperation. However, major
differences continued to exist between the two, particularly with regard to
Eastern Europe. As a result of these differences, the United States adopted a
"get tough" policy toward the Soviet Union after the war ended. The
Soviets responded by accusing the United States and the other capitalist allies
of the West of seeking to encircle the Soviet Union so they could eventually
overthrow its Communist form of government.
The subject
of Cold War interests American historicans and journalists as well as Russian
ones. In particular, famous journalist Henryh Borovik fraces this topic in his
book. He analyzes the events of Cold War from the point of view of modern
Russian man. With appearing of democracy and freedom of speech we could free
ourselves from past stereotype in perception of Cold War's events as well as
America as a whole, we also learnt something new about American people's real
life and personality. A new developing stage of relations with the United
States has begun with the collapse of the Soviet Union on independent states.
And in order to direct these relations in the right way it is necessary to
study events of Cold War very carefully and try to avoid past mistakes.
Therefore this subject is so much popular in our days.
This
graduation paper consist of three chapters. The first chapter maintain the
historical documents which comment the origins of the Cold War.
The second
chapter maintain information about the most popular Cold War's events.
The third chapter analyze the role of
Cold War in World policy and diplomacy. The chapter also adduce the Cold War
issues.
Chapter 1: The Historical Background of Cold War.
1.1 The
Historical Context.
The animosity of postwar
Soviet-American relations drew on a deep reservoir of mutual distrust. Soviet
suspicion of the United States went back to America's hostile reaction to the
Bolshevik revolution itself. At the end of World War I, President Woodrow
Wilson had sent more than ten thousand American soldiers as part of an
expeditionary allied force to overthrow the new Soviet regime by force. When
that venture failed, the United States nevertheless withheld its recognition of
the Soviet government. Back in the United States, meanwhile, the fear of
Marxist radicalism reached an hysterical pitch with the Red Scare of 1919-20.
Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer ordered government agents to arrest 3,000
purported members of the Communist party, and then attempted to deport them.
American attitudes toward the seemed encapsulated in the comments of one
minister who called for the removal of communists in "ships of stone with
sails of lead, with the wrath of God for a breeze and with hell for their first
port."
American attitudes toward
the Soviet Union, in turn, reflected profound concern about Soviet violation of
human rights, democratic procedures, and international rules of civility. With
brutal force, Soviet leaders had imposed from above a revolution of
agricultural collectivization and industrialization. Millions had died as a
consequence of forced removal from their lands. Anyone who protested was killed
or sent to one of the hundreds of prison camps which, in Alexander
Solzhenitsyn's words, stretched across the Soviet Union like a giant
archipelago. What kind of people were these, one relative of a prisoner asked,
"who first decreed and then carried out this mass destruction of their own
kind?" Furthermore, Soviet foreign policy seemed committed to the spread
of revolution to other countries, with international coordination of subversive
activities placed in the hands of the Comintern. It was difficult to imagine two
more different societies.
For a brief period after
the United States granted diplomatic recognition to the Soviet Union in 1933, a
new spirit of cooperation prevailed. But by the end of the 1930s suspicion and
alienation had once again become dominant. From a Soviet perspective, the
United States seemed unwilling to join collectively to oppose the Japanese and
German menace. On two occasions, the United States had refused to act in
concert against Nazi Germany. When Britain and France agreed at Munich to appease
Adolph Hitler, the Soviets gave up on any possibility of allied action against
Germany and talked of a capitalist effort to encircle and destroy the Soviet
regime.
Yet from a Western
perspective, there seemed little basis for distinguishing between Soviet
tyranny and Nazi totalitarianism. Between 1936 and 1938 Stalin engaged in his
own holocaust, sending up to 6 million Soviet citizens to their deaths in
massive purge trials. Stalin "saw enemies everywhere," his daughter
later recalled, and with a vengeance frightening in its irrationality, sought
to destroy them. It was an "orgy of terror," one historian said.
Diplomats saw high officials tapped on the shoulder in public places, removed
from circulation, and then executed. Foreigners were subject to constant
surveillance. It was as if, George Kennan noted, outsiders were representatives
of "the devil, evil and dangerous, and to be shunned."
On the basis of such
experience, many Westerners concluded that Hitler and Stalin were two of a
kind, each reflecting a blood-thirsty obsession with power no matter what the
cost to human decency. "Nations, like individuals," Kennan said in
1938, "are largely the products of their environment." As Kennan
perceived it, the Soviet personality was neurotic, conspiratorial, and
untrustworthy. Such impressions were only reinforced when Stalin suddenly
announced a nonaggression treaty with Hitler in August 1939, and later that
year invaded the small, neutral state of Finland. It seemed that Stalin and
Hitler deserved each other. Hence, the reluctance of some to change their
attitudes toward the Soviet Union when suddenly, in June 1941, Germany invaded
Russia and Stalin became "Uncle Joe."
Compounding the problem
of historical distrust was the different way in which the two nations viewed
foreign policy. Ever since John Winthrop had spoken of Boston in 1630 as
"a city upon a hill" that would serve as a beacon for the world,
Americans had tended to see themselves as a chosen people with a distinctive
mission to impart their faith and values to the rest of humankind. Although all
countries attempt to put the best face possible on their military and
diplomatic actions, Americans have seemed more committed than most to
describing their involvement in the world as pure and altruistic. Hence, even
ventures like the Mexican War of 1846 - 48 - clearly provoked by the United
States in an effort to secure huge land masses - were defended publicly as the
fulfillment of a divine mission to extend American democracy to those deprived
of it.
Reliance on the rhetoric
of moralism was never more present than during America's involvement in World
War I. Despite its official posture of neutrality, the United States had a
vested interest in the victory of England and France over Germany. America's
own military security, her trade lines with England and France, economic and
political control over Latin America and South America - all would best be
preserved if Germany were defeated. Moreover, American banks and munition
makers had invested millions of dollars in the allied cause. Nevertheless, the
issue of national self-interest rarely if ever surfaced in any presidential
statement during the war. Instead, U.S. rhetoric presented America's position
as totally idealistic in nature. The United States entered the war, President
Wilson declared, not for reasons of economic self-interest, but to "make
the world safe for democracy." Our purpose was not to restore a balance of
power in Europe, but to fight a war that would "end all wars" and
produce "a peace without victory." Rather than seek a sphere of
influence for American power, the United States instead declared that it sought
to establish a new form of internationalism based on self-determination for all
peoples, freedom of the seas, the end of all economic barriers between nations,
and development of a new international order based on the principles of
democracy.
America's historic
reluctance to use arguments of self-interest as a basis for foreign policy
undoubtedly reflected a belief that, in a democracy, people would not support
foreign ventures inconsistent with their own sense of themselves as a noble and
just country. But the consequences were to limit severely the flexibility
necessary to a multifaceted and effective diplomacy, and to force national
leaders to invoke moral - even religious - idealism as a basis for actions that
might well fall short of the expectations generated by moralistic visions.
The Soviet Union, by
contrast, operated with few such constraints. Although Soviet pronouncements on
foreign policy tediously invoked the rhetoric of capitalist imperialism,
abstract principles meant far less than national self-interest in arriving at
foreign policy positions. Every action that the Soviet Union had taken since
the Bolshevik revolution, from the peace treaty with the Kaiser to the 1939
Nazi-Soviet pact and Russian occupation of the Baltic states reflected this
policy of self-interest. As Stalin told British Foreign Minister Anthony Eden
during the war, "a declaration I regard as algebra ... I prefer practical
arithmetic." Or, as the Japanese ambassador to Moscow later said,
"the Soviet authorities are extremely realistic and it is most difficult
to persuade them with abstract arguments." Clearly, both the United States
and the Soviet Union saw foreign policy as involving a combination of
self-interest and ideological principle. Yet the history of the two countries
suggested that principle was far more a consideration in the formulation of
American foreign policy, while self-interest-purely defined-controlled Soviet
actions.
The difference became
relevant during the 1930s as Franklin Roosevelt attempted to find some way to
move American public opinion back to a spirit of internationalism. After World
War I, Americans had felt betrayed by the abandonment of Wilsonian principles.
Persuaded that the war itself represented a mischievous conspiracy by munitions
makers and bankers to get America involved, Americans had preferred to opt for
isolation and "normalcy" rather than participate in the ambiguities
of what so clearly appeared to be a corrupt international order. Now, Roosevelt
set out to reverse those perceptions. He understood the dire consequences of
Nazi ambitions for world hegemony. Yet to pose the issue strictly as one of
self-interest offered little chance of success given the depth of America's
revulsion toward internationalism. The task of education was immense. As time
went on, Roosevelt relied more and more on the traditional moral rhetoric of
American values as a means of justifying the international involvement that he
knew must inevitably lead to war. Thus, throughout the 1930s he repeatedly
discussed Nazi aggression as a direct threat to the most cherished American
beliefs in freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and freedom of occupational
choice. When German actions corroborated the president's simple words, the
opportunity presented itself for carrying the nation toward another great
crusade on behalf of democracy, freedom, and peace. Roosevelt wished to avoid
the errors of Wilsonian overstatement, but he understood the necessity of
generating moral fervor as a means of moving the nation toward the intervention
he knew to be necessary if both America's self-interest-and her moral
principles-were to be preserved.
The Atlantic Charter
represented the embodiment of Roosevelt's quest for moral justification of
American involvement. Presented to the world after the president and Prime
Minister Churchill met off the coast of Newfoundland in the summer of 1941, the
Charter set forth the common goals that would guide America over the next few
years. There would be no secret commitments, the President said. Britain and
America sought no territorial aggrandizement. They would oppose any violation
of the right to self-government for all peoples. They stood for open trade,
free exchange of ideas, freedom of worship and expression, and the creation of
an international organization to preserve and protect future peace. This would
be a war fought for freedom—freedom from fear, freedom from want, freedom of
religion, freedom from the old politics of balance-of-power diplomacy.
Roosevelt deeply believed
in those ideals and saw no inconsistency between the moral principles they
represented and American self-interest. Yet these very commitments threatened
to generate misunderstanding and conflict with the Soviet Union whose own
priorities were much more directly expressed in terms of "practical
arithmetic." Russia wanted security. The Soviet Union sought a sphere of
influence over which it could have unrestricted control. It wished territorial
boundaries that would reflect the concessions won through military conflict.
All these objectives-potentially-ran counter to the Atlantic Charter. Roosevelt
himself-never afraid of inconsistency-often talked the same language.
Frequently, he spoke of guaranteeing the USSR "measures of legitimate
security" on territorial questions, and he envisioned a postwar world in
which the "four policemen"-the superpowers-would manage the world.
But Roosevelt also
understood that the American public would not accept the public embrace of such
positions. A rationale of narrow self-interest was not acceptable, especially
if that self-interest led to abandoning the ideals of the Atlantic Charter. In
short, the different ways in which the Soviet Union and the United States
articulated their objectives for the war—and formulated their foreign
policy—threatened to compromise the prospect for long-term cooperation. The
language of universalism and the language of balance-of-power politics were
incompatible, at least in theory. Thus, the United States and the Soviet Union
entered the war burdened not only by their deep mistrust of each other's
motivations and systems of government, but also by a significantly different
emphasis on what should constitute the major rationale for fighting the war.
1.2
Causes and Interpretations.
Any historian
who studies the Cold War must come to grips with a series of questions, which,
even if unanswerable in a definitive fashion, nevertheless compel examination.
Was the Cold War inevitable? If not, how could it have been avoided? What role
did personalities play? Were there points at which different courses of action
might have been followed? What economic factors were central? What ideological
causes? Which historical forces? At what juncture did alternative possibilities
become invalid? When was the die cast? Above all, what were the primary reasons
for defining the world in such a polarized and ideological framework?
The
simplest and easiest response is to conclude that Soviet-American
confrontation was so deeply rooted in differences of values, economic systems,
or historical experiences that only extraordinary action— by individuals or
groups—could have prevented the conflict. One version of the inevitability
hypothesis would argue that the Soviet Union, given its commitment to the
ideology of communism, was dedicated to worldwide revolution and would use any
and every means possible to promote the demise of the West. According to this
view—based in large part on the rhetoric of Stalin and Lenin—world revolution
constituted the sole priority of Soviet policy. Even the appearance of
accommodation was a Soviet design to soften up capitalist states for eventual
confrontation. As defined, admittedly in oversimplified fashion, by George
Kennan in his famous 1947 article on containment, Russian diplomacy "moves
along the prescribed path, like a persistent toy automobile, wound up and
headed in a given direction, stopping only when it meets some unanswerable
force." Soviet subservience to a universal, religious creed ruled out even
the possibility of mutual concessions, since even temporary accommodation would
be used by the Russians as part of their grand scheme to secure world
domination.
A
second version of the same hypothesis—argued by some American revisionist
historians—contends that the endless demands of capitalism for new markets
propelled the United States into a course of intervention and imperialism.
According to this argument, a capitalist society can survive only by opening
new areas for exploitation. Without the development of multinational
corporations, strong ties with German capitalists, and free trade across
national boundaries, America would revert to the depression of the prewar
years. Hence, an aggressive internationalism became the only means through
which the ruling class of the United States could retain hegemony. In support
of this argument, historians point to the number of American policymakers who
explicitly articulated an economic motivation for U.S. foreign policy. "We
cannot expect domestic prosperity under our system," Assistant Secretary
of State Dean Acheson said, "without a constantly expanding trade with
other nations." Echoing the same theme, the State Department's William
Clayton declared: "We need markets—big markets—around the world in which
to buy and sell. . . . We've got to export three times as much as we exported
just before the war if we want to keep our industry running somewhere near
capacity." According to this argument, economic necessity motivated the
Truman Doctrine, the Marshall Plan, and the vigorous efforts of U.S.
policymakers to open up Eastern Europe for trade and investment. Within such a
frame of reference, it was the capitalist economic system—not Soviet commitment
to world revolution—that made the Cold War unavoidable.
Still a third version of
the inevitability hypothesis—partly based on the first two—would insist that
historical differences between the two superpowers and their systems of
government made any efforts toward postwar cooperation almost impossible.
Russia had always been deeply suspicious of the West, and under Stalin that
suspicion had escalated into paranoia, with Soviet leaders fearing that any
opening of channels would ultimately destroy their own ability to retain total
mastery over the Russian people. The West's failure to implement early promises
of a second front and the subsequent divisions of opinion over how to treat
occupied territory had profoundly strained any possible basis of trust. From an
American perspective, in turn, it stretched credibility to expect a nation
committed to human rights to place confidence in a ruthless dictator, who in
one Yugoslav's words, had single-handedly been responsible for more Soviet
deaths than all the armies of Nazi Germany. Through the purges,
collectivization, and mass imprisonment of Russian citizens, Stalin had
presided over the killing of 20 million of his own people. How then could he be
trusted to respect the rights of others? According to this argument, only the
presence of a common enemy had made possible even short-term solidarity between
Russia and the United States; in the absence of a German foe, natural
antagonisms were bound to surface. America had one system of politics, Russia
another, and as Truman declared in 1948, "a totalitarian state is no
different whether you call it Nazi, fascist, communist, or Franco Spain."
Yet, in retrospect, these
arguments for inevitability tell only part of the story. Notwithstanding the
Soviet Union's rhetorical commitment to an ideology of world revolution, there
is abundant evidence of Russia's willingness to forego ideological purity in
the cause of national interest. Stalin, after all, had turned away from world
revolution in committing himself to building "socialism in one
country." Repeatedly, he indicated his readiness to betray the communist
movement in China and to accept the leadership of Chiang Kai-shek. George
Kennan recalled the Soviet leader "snorting rather contemptuously . . .
because one of our people asked them what they were going to give to China when
[the war] was over." "We have a hundred cities of our own to build in
the Soviet Far East," Stalin had responded. "If anybody is going to
give anything to the Far East, I think it's you." Similarly, Stalin
refused to give any support to communists in Greece during their rebellion
against British domination there. As late as 1948 he told the vice-premier of
Yugoslavia, "What do you think, . . . that Great Britain and the United
States . . . will permit you to break their lines of communication in the
Mediterranean? Nonsense . . . the uprising in Greece must be stopped, and as
quickly as possible."
Nor are the other
arguments for inevitability totally persuasive. Without question, America's
desire for commercial markets played a role in the strategy of the Cold War. As
Truman said in 1949, devotion to freedom of enterprise "is part and parcel
of what we call America." Yet was the need for markets sufficient to force
a confrontation that ultimately would divert precious resources from other,
more productive use? Throughout most of its history, Wall Street has opposed a
bellicose position in foreign policy. Similarly, although historical
differences are important, it makes no sense to regard them as determinative.
After all, the war led to extraordinary examples of cooperation that bridged
these differences; if they could be overcome once, then why not again? Thus,
while each of the arguments for inevitability reflects truths that contributed
to the Cold War, none offers an explanation sufficient of itself, for
contending that the Cold War was unavoidable.
A stronger case, it
seems, can be made for the position that the Cold War was unnecessary, or at
least that conflicts could have been handled in a manner that avoided
bipolarization and the rhetoric of an ideological crusade. At no time did
Russia constitute a military threat to the United States.
"Economically," U.S. Naval Intelligence reported in 1946, "the
Soviet Union is exhausted.... The USSR is not expected to take any action in
the next five years which might develop into hostility with Anglo
Americans." Notwithstanding the Truman administration's public statements
about a Soviet threat, Russia had cut its army from 11.5 to 3 million men after
the war. In 1948, its military budget amounted to only half of that of the
United States. Even militant anticommunists like John Foster Dulles
acknowledged that "the Soviet leadership does not want and would not
consciously risk" a military confrontation with the West. Indeed, so
exaggerated was American rhetoric about Russia's threat that Hanson Baldwin,
military expert of the New York Times, compared the claims of our armed
forces to the "shepherd who cried wolf, wolf, wolf, when there was no wolf."
Thus, on purely factual grounds, there existed no military basis for the fear
that the Soviet Union was about to seize world domination, despite the often
belligerent pose Russia took on political issues.
A second, somewhat more
problematic, argument for the thesis of avoidability consists of the extent to
which Russian leaders appeared ready to abide by at least some agreements made
during the war. Key, here, is the understanding reached by Stalin and Churchill
during the fall of 1944 on the division of Europe into spheres of influence.
According to that understanding, Russia was to dominate Romania, have a
powerful voice over Bulgaria, and share influence in other Eastern European
countries, while Britain and America were to control Greece. By most accounts,
that understanding was implemented. Russia refused to intervene on behalf of
communist insurgency in Greece. While retaining rigid control over Romania, she
provided at least a "fig-leaf of democratic procedure"—sufficient to
satisfy the British. For two years the USSR permitted the election of
noncommunist or coalition regimes in both Hungary and Czechoslovakia. The
Finns, meanwhile, were permitted to choose a noncommunist government and to
practice Western-style democracy as long as their country maintained a friendly
foreign policy toward their neighbor on the east. Indeed, to this day, Finland
remains an example of what might have evolved had earlier wartime
understandings on both sides been allowed to continue.
What then went wrong?
First, it seems clear that both sides perceived the other as breaking
agreements that they thought had been made. By signing a separate peace
settlement with the Lublin Poles, imprisoning the sixteen members of the Polish
underground, and imposing—without regard for democratic appearances—total
hegemony on Poland, the Soviets had broken the spirit, if not the letter, of
the Yalta accords. Similarly, they blatantly violated the agreement made by
both powers to withdraw from Iran once the war was over, thus precipitating the
first direct threat of military confrontation during the Cold War. In their
attitude toward Eastern Europe, reparations, and peaceful cooperation with the
West, the Soviets exhibited increasing rigidity and suspicion after April 1945.
On the other hand, Stalin had good reason to accuse the United States of
reneging on compacts made during the war. After at least tacitly accepting
Russia's right to a sphere of influence in Eastern Europe, the West seemed suddenly
to change positions and insist on Western-style democracies and economies. As
the historian Robert Daliek has shown, Roosevelt and Churchill gave every
indication at Tehran and Yalta that they acknowledged the Soviet's need to have
friendly governments in Eastern Europe. Roosevelt seemed to care primarily
about securing token or cosmetic concessions toward democratic processes while
accepting the substance of Russian domination. Instead, misunderstanding
developed over the meaning of the Yalta accords, Truman confronted Molotov with
demands that the Soviets saw as inconsistent with prior understandings, and
mutual suspicion rather than cooperation assumed dominance in relations between
the two superpowers.
It is this area of
misperception and misunderstanding that historians have focused on recently as
most critical to the emergence of the Cold War. Presumably, neither side had a
master plan of how to proceed once the war ended. Stalin's ambitions, according
to recent scholarship, were ill-defined, or at least amenable to modification
depending on America's posture. The United States, in turn, gave mixed signals,
with Roosevelt implying to every group his agreement with their point of view,
yet ultimately keeping his personal intentions secret. If, in fact, both sides
could have agreed to a sphere-of-influence policy—albeit with some
modifications to satisfy American political opinion—there could perhaps have
been a foundation for continued accommodation. Clearly, the United States
intended to retain control over its sphere of influence, particularly in
Greece, Italy, and Turkey. Moreover, the United States insisted on retaining
total domination over the Western hemisphere, consistent with the philosophy of
the Monroe Doctrine. If the Soviets had been allowed similar control over their
sphere of influence in Eastern Europe, there might have existed a basis for
compromise. As John McCloy asked at the time, "[why was it necessary] to
have our cake and eat it too? . . . To be free to operate under this regional
arrangement in South America and at the same time intervene promptly in
Europe." If the United States and Russia had both acknowledged the
spheres of influence implicit in their wartime agreements, perhaps a different
pattern of relationships might have emerged in the postwar world.
The fact that such a pattern did not emerge raises two
issues, at least from an American perspective. The first is whether different
leaders or advisors might have achieved different foreign policy results. Some
historians believe that Roosevelt, with his subtlety and skill, would have
found a way to promote collaboration with the Russians, whereas Truman, with
his short temper, inexperience, and insecurity, blundered into unnecessary and
harmful confrontations. Clearly, Roosevelt himself—just before his death—was
becoming more and more concerned about Soviet intransigence and aggression.
Nevertheless, he had always believed that through personal pressure and
influence, he could find a way to persaude "uncle Joe." On the basis
of what evidence we have, there seems good reason to believe that the Russians
did place enormous trust in FDR. Perhaps—just perhaps—Roosevelt could have
found a way to talk "practical arithmetic" with Stalin rather than
algebra and discover a common ground. Certainly, if recent historians are
correct in seeing the Cold War as caused by both Stalin's undefined ambitions
and America's failure to communicate effectively and consistently its view on
where it would draw the line with the Russians, then Roosevelt's long history
of interaction with the Soviets would presumably have placed him in a better
position to negotiate than the inexperienced Truman.
The second issue is more
complicated, speaking to a political problem which beset both Roosevelt and
Truman—namely, the ability of an American president to formulate and win
support for a foreign policy on the basis of national self-interest rather than
moral purity. At some point in the past, an American diplomat wrote in 1967:
[T]here crept
into the ideas of Americans about foreign policy ... a histrionic note, ... a
desire to appear as something greater perhaps than one actually was. ... It was
inconceivable that any war in which we were involved could be less than
momentous and decisive for the future of humanity. ... As each war ended, ...
we took appeal to universalistic, Utopian ideals, related not to the specifics
of national interest but to legalistic and moralistic concepts that seemed
better to accord with the pretentious significance we had attached to our war
effort.
As a
consequence, the diplomat went on, it became difficult to pursue a policy not
defined by the language of "angels or devils," "heroes" or
"blackguards."
Clearly, Roosevelt faced
such a dilemma in proceeding to mobilize American support for intervention in
the war against Nazism. And Truman encountered the same difficulty in seeking
to define a policy with which to meet Soviet postwar objectives. Both
presidents, of course, participated in and reflected the political culture that
constrained their options. Potentially at least, Roosevelt seemed intent on
fudging the difference between self-interest and moralism. He perceived one set
of objectives as consistent with reaching an accommodation with the Soviets,
and another set of goals as consistent with retaining popular support for his
diplomacy at home. It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that he planned—in a
very Machiavellian way—to use rhetoric and appearances as a means of disguising
his true intention: to pursue a strategy of self-interest. It seems less clear
that Truman had either the subtlety or the wish to follow a similarly
Machiavellian course. But if he had, the way might have been opened to quite a
different—albeit politically risky— series of policies.
None of
this, of course, would have guaranteed the absence of conflict in Eastern
Europe, Iran, or Turkey. Nor could any action of an American president—however
much rooted in self-interest—have obviated the personal and political threat
posed by Stalinist tyranny and ruthlessness, particularly if Stalin himself had
chosen, for whatever reason, to act out his most aggressive and paranoid
instincts. But if a sphere-of-influence agreement had been possible, there is
some reason to think—in light of initial Soviet acceptance of Western-style
governments in Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and Finland—that the iron curtain
might not have descended in the way that it did. In all historical sequences,
one action builds on another. Thus, steps toward cooperation rather than
confrontation might have created a momentum, a frame of reference and a basis
of mutual trust, that could have made unnecessary the total ideological
bipolarization that evolved by 1948. In short, if the primary goals of each
superpower had been acknowledged and implemented—security for the Russians,
some measure of pluralism in Eastern European countries for the United States,
and economic interchange between the two blocs—it seems conceivable that the
world might have avoided the stupidity, the fear, and the hysteria of the Cold
War.
As it was, of course,
very little of the above scenario did take place. After the confrontation in
Iran, the Soviet declaration of a five-year plan, Churchill's Fulton, Missouri,
speech, and the breakdown of negotiations on an American loan, confrontation
between the two superpowers seemed irrevocable. It is difficult to imagine that
the momentum building toward the Cold War could have been reversed after the
winter and spring of 1946. Thereafter, events assumed an almost inexorable
momentum, with both sides using moralistic rhetoric and ideological
denunciation to pillory the other. In the United States it became incumbent on
the president—in order to secure domestic political support—to defend the
Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan in universalistic, moral terms. Thus, we
became engaged, not in an effort to assure jobs and security, but in a holy war
against evil. Stalin, in turn, gave full vent to his crusade to eliminate any
vestige of free thought or national independence in Eastern Europe. Reinhold
Niebuhr might have been speaking for both sides when he said in 1948, "we
cannot afford any more compromises. We will have to stand at every point in our
far flung lines."
The tragedy, of course,
was that such a policy offered no room for intelligence or flexibility. If the
battle in the world was between good and evil, believers and nonbelievers,
anyone who questioned the wisdom of established policy risked dismissal as a
traitor or worse. In the Soviet Union the Gulag Archipelago of concentration
camps and executions was the price of failing to conform to the party line. But
the United States paid a price as well. An ideological frame of reference had
emerged through which all other information was filtered. The mentality of the
Cold War shaped everything, defining issues according to moralistic
assumptions, regardless of objective reality. It had been George Kennan's
telegram in February 1946 that helped to provide the intellectual basis for
this frame of reference by portraying the Soviet Union as "a political
force committed fanatically" to confrontation with the United States and
domination of the world. It was also George Kennan twenty years later who so
searchingly criticized those who insisted on seeing foreign policy as a battle
of angels and devils, heroes and blackguards. And ironically, it was Kennan yet
again who declared in the 1970s that "the image of a Stalinist Russia,
poised and yearning to attack the west, . . . was largely a product of the
western imagination."
But for more than a
generation, that image would shape American life and world politics. The price
was astronomical—and perhaps— avoidable.
Chapter 2: The Cold War Chronology.
2.1 The War Years.
Whatever
tensions existed before the war, conflicts over military and diplomatic issues
during the war proved sufficiently grave to cause additional mistrust. Two
countries that in the past had shared almost no common ground now found
themselves intimately tied to each other, with little foundation of mutual
confidence on which to build. The problems that resulted clustered in two
areas: (1) how much aid the West would provide to alleviate the
disproportionate burden borne by the Soviet Union in fighting the war; and (2)
how to resolve the dilemmas of making peace, occupying conquered territory, and
defining postwar responsibilities. Inevitably, each issue became inextricably
bound to the others, posing problems of statecraft and good faith that perhaps
went beyond the capacity of any mortal to solve.
The central issue
dividing the allies involved how much support the United States and Britain
would offer to mitigate, then relieve, the devastation being sustained by the
Soviet people. Stated bluntly, the Soviet Union bore the massive share of Nazi
aggression. The statistics alone are overwhelming. Soviet deaths totaled more
than 18 million during the war—sixty times the three hundred thousand lives
lost by the United States. Seventy thousand Soviet villages were destroyed,
$128 billion dollars worth of property leveled to the ground. Leningrad, the
crown jewel of Russia's cities, symbolized the suffering experienced at the
hands of the Nazis. Filled with art and beautiful architecture, the former
capital of Russia came under siege by German armies almost immediately after
the invasion of the Soviet Union. When the attack began, the city boasted a
population of 3 million citizens. At the end, only 600,000 remained. There was
no food, no fuel, no hope. More than a million starved, and some survived by
resorting to cannibalism. Yet the city endured, the Nazis were repelled, and
the victory that came with survival helped launch the campaign that would
ultimately crush Hitler's tyranny.
But even Roosevelt's
personal involvement could not end the problems that kept developing around the
lend-lease program. Inevitably, bureaucratic tangles delayed shipment of
necessary supplies. Furthermore, German submarine assaults sank thousands of
tons of weaponry. In just one month in 1942, twenty-three of thirty-seven
merchant vessels on their way to the Soviet Union were destroyed, forcing a
cancellation of shipments to Murmansk. Indeed, until late summer of 1942, the
Allies lost more ships in submarine attacks than they were able to build.
Above all, old suspicions
continued to creep into the ongoing process of negotiating and distributing
lend-lease supplies. Americans who had learned during the purges to regard
Stalin as "a sort of unwashed Genghis Khan with blood dripping from his
fingertips" could not believe that he had changed his colors overnight and
was now to be viewed as a gentle friend. Many Americans believed that they were
saving the Soviet Union with their supplies, without recognizing the extent of
Soviet suffering or appreciating the fact that the Russians were helping to
save American lives by their sacrifice on the battlefield. Soviet officials, in
turn, believed that their American counterparts overseeing the shipments were
not necessarily doing all that they might to implement the promises made by
the president. Americans expected gratitude. Russians expected supplies. Both
expectations were justified, yet the conflict reflected the extent to which
underlying distrust continued to poison the prospect of cooperation.
"Frankly," FDR told one subordinate, "if I was a Russian, I
would feel that I had been given the runaround in the United States." Yet
with equal justification, Americans resented Soviet ingratitude. "The
Russian authorities seem to want to cover up the fact that they are receiving
outside help," American Ambassador Standley told a Moscow press conference
in March 1943. "Apparently they want their people to believe that the Red
Army is fighting this war alone." Clearly, the battle against Nazi Germany
was not the only conflict taking place.
Yet the disputes over
lend-lease proved minor compared to the issue of a second front—what one
historian has called "the acid test of Anglo-American intentions."
However much help the United States could provide in the way of war materiel,
the decisive form of relief that Stalin sought was the actual involvement of
American and British soldiers in Western Europe. Only such an invasion could
significantly relieve the pressure of massive German divisions on the eastern
front. During the years 1941-44, fewer than 10 percent of Germany's troops were
in the west, while nearly three hundred divisions were committed to conquering
Russia. If the Soviet Union was to survive, and the Allies to secure victory,
it was imperative that American and British troops force a diversion of German
troops to the west and help make possible the pincer movement from east and
west that would eventually annihilate the fascist foe.
Roosevelt understood this
all too well. Indeed, he appears to have wished nothing more than the most
rapid possible development of the second front. In part, he saw such action as
the only means to deflect a Soviet push for acceptance of Russia's pre-World
War II territorial acquisitions, particularly in the Baltic states and Finland.
Such acquisitions would not only be contrary to the Atlantic Charter and
America's commitment to self-determination; they would also undermine the
prospect of securing political support in America for international postwar
cooperation. Hence, Roosevelt hoped to postpone, until victory was achieved,
any final decisions on issues of territory. Shrewdly, the president understood
that meeting Soviet demands for direct military assistance through a second
front would offer the most effective answer to Russia's territorial
aspirations.
Roosevelt had read the
Soviet attitude correctly. In 1942, Soviet foreign minister Molotov readily
agreed to withdraw his territorial demands in deference to U.S. concerns
because the second front was so much more decisive an issue. When Molotov asked
whether the Allies could undertake a second front operation that would draw off
forty German divisions from the eastern front, the president replied that it
could and that it would. Roosevelt cabled Churchill that he was "more
anxious than ever" for a cross-channel attack in August 1942 so that
Molotov would be able to "carry back some real results of his mission and
give a favorable report to Stalin." At the end of their 1942 meeting,
Roosevelt pledged to Molotov-and through him to Stalin-that a second front would
be established that year. The president then proceeded to mobilize his own
military advisors to develop plans for such an attack.
But Roosevelt could not
deliver. Massive logistical and production problems obstructed any possibility
of invading Western Europe on the timetable Roosevelt had promised. As a
result, despite Roosevelt's own best intentions and the commitment of his
military staff, he could not implement his desire to proceed. In addition,
Roosevelt repeatedly encountered objections from Churchill and the British
military establishment, still traumatized by the memory of the bloodletting
that had occurred in the trench fighting of World War I. For Churchill,
engagement of the Nazis in North Africa and then through the "soft
underbelly" of Europe-Sicily and Italy-offered a better prospect for
success. Hence, after promising Stalin a second front in August 1942, Roosevelt
had to withdraw the pledge and ask for delay of the second front until the
spring of 1943. When that date arrived, he was forced to pull back yet again
for political and logistical reasons. By the time D-Day finally dawned on June
6, 1944, the Western Allies had broken their promise on the single most
critical military issue of the war three times. On each occasion, there had
been ample reason for the delay, but given the continued heavy burden placed on
the Soviet Union, it was perhaps understandable that some Russian leaders
viewed America's delay on the second front question with suspicion, sarcasm,
and anger. When D-Day arrived, Stalin acknowledged the operation to be one of
the greatest military ventures of human history. Still, the squabbles that
preceded D-Day contributed substantially to the suspicions and tension that
already existed between the two nations.
Another broad area of conflict
emerged over who would control occupied areas once the war ended? How would
peace be negotiated? The principles of the Atlantic Charter presumed
establishment of democratic, freely elected, and representative governments in
every area won back from the Nazis. If universalism were to prevail, each
country liberated from Germany would have the opportunity to determine its own
political structure through democratic means that would ensure representation
of all factions of the body politic. If "sphere of influence"
policies were implemented, by contrast, the major powers would dictate such
decisions in a manner consistent with their own self-interest. Ultimately, this
issue would become the decisive point of confrontation during the Cold War,
reflecting the different state systems and political values of the Soviets and
Americans; but even in the midst of the fighting, the Allies found themselves
in major disagreement, sowing seeds of distrust that boded ill for the future.
Since no plans were established in advance on how to deal with these issues,
they were handled on a case by case basis, in each instance reinforcing the
suspicions already present between the Soviet Union and the West.
Notwithstanding the
Atlantic Charter, Britain and the United States proceeded on a de facto basis
to implement policies at variance with universalism. Thus, for example, General
Dwight Eisenhower was authorized to reach an accommodation with Admiral Darlan
in North Africa as a means of avoiding an extended military campaign to defeat
the Vichy, pro-fascist collaborators who controlled that area. From the
perspective of military necessity and the preservation of life, it made sense
to compromise one's ideals in such a situation. Yet the precedent inevitably
raised problems with regard to allied efforts to secure self-determination
elsewhere.
The issue arose again
during the Allied invasion of Italy. There, too, concern with expediting
military victory and securing political stability caused Britain and the United
States to negotiate with the fascist Badoglio regime. "We cannot be put
into a position," Churchill said, "where our two armies are doing all
the fighting but Russians have a veto." Yet Stalin bitterly resented being
excluded from participation in the Italian negotiations. The Soviet Union
protested vigorously the failure to establish a tripartite commission to
conduct all occupation negotiations. It was time, Stalin said, to stop viewing
Russia as "a passive third observer. ... It is impossible to tolerate such
a situation any longer." In the end, Britain and the United States offered
the token concession of giving the Soviets an innocuous role on the advisory
commission dealing with Italy, but the primary result of the Italian experience
was to reemphasize a crucial political reality: when push came to shove, those
who exercised military control in an immediate situation would also exercise
political control over any occupation regime.
The shoe was on the other
foot when it came to Western desires to have a voice over Soviet actions in the
Balkan states, particularly Romania. By not giving Russia an opportunity to
participate in the Italian surrender, the West-in effect-helped legitimize
Russia's desire to proceed unilaterally in Eastern Europe. Although both
Churchill and Roosevelt were "acutely conscious of the great importance of
the Balkan situation" and wished to "take advantage of" any
opportunity to exercise influence in that area, the simple fact was that Soviet
troops were in control. Churchill-and privately Roosevelt as well-accepted the
consequences. "The occupying forces had the power in the area where their
arms were present," Roosevelt noted, "and each knew that the other
could not force things to an issue." But the contradiction between the
stated idealistic aims of the war effort and such realpolitik would come
back to haunt the prospect for postwar collaboration, particularly in the areas
of Poland and other east European countries.
Moments of conflict, of
course, took place within the context of day-to-day cooperation in meeting
immediate wartime needs. Sometimes, such cooperation seemed deep and genuine
enough to provide a basis for overcoming suspicion and conflict of interest. At
the Moscow foreign ministers conference in the fall of 1943, the Soviets proved
responsive to U.S. concerns. Reassured that there would indeed be a second
front in Europe in 1944, the Russians strongly endorsed a postwar international
organization to preserve the peace. More important, they indicated they would
join the war against Japan as soon as Germany was defeated, and appeared
willing to accept the Chiang Kaishek government in China as a major participant
in world politics. In some ways, these were a series of quid pro quos.
In exchange for the second front, Russia had made concessions on issues of
critical importance to Britain and the United States. Nevertheless, the
results were encouraging. FDR reported that the conference had created "a
psychology of ... excellent feeling." Instead of being "cluttered
with suspicion," the discussions had occurred in an atmosphere that
"was amazingly good."
The same spirit continued
at the first meeting of Stalin, Churchill, and Roosevelt in Tehran during
November and early December 1943. Committed to winning Stalin as a friend, FDR
stayed at the Soviet Embassy, met privately with Stalin, aligned himself with
the Soviet leader against Churchill on a number of issues, and even went so far
as to taunt Churchill "about his Britishness, about John Bull," in an
effort to forge an informal "anti-imperial" alliance between the
United States and the Soviet Union. A spirit of cooperation prevailed, with the
wartime leaders agreeing that the Big Four would have the power to police any
postwar settlements (clearly consistent with Stalin's commitment to a
"sphere of influence" approach), reaffirming plans for a joint
military effort against Japan, and even—after much difficulty—appearing to find
a common approach to the difficulties of Poland and Eastern Europe. When it was
all over, FDR told the American people: "I got along fine with Marshall
Stalin ... I believe he is truly representative of the heart and soul of
Russia; and I believe that we are going to get along very well with him and the
Russian people—very well indeed." When pressed on what kind of a person
the Soviet leader was, Roosevelt responded:
"I would call him
something like me, ... a realist."
The final conference of
Stalin, Churchill, and Roosevelt at Yalta in February 1945 appeared at the time
to carry forward the partnership, although in retrospect it would become clear
that the facade of unity was built on a foundation of misperceptions rooted in
the different values, priorities, and political ground rules of the two
societies. Stalin seemed to recognize Roosevelt's need to present postwar
plans—for domestic political reasons—as consistent with democratic,
universalistic principles. Roosevelt, in turn, appreciated Stalin's need for
friendly governments on his borders. The three leaders agreed on concrete plans
for Soviet participation in the Japanese war, and Stalin reiterated his support
for a coalition government in China with Chiang Kaishek assuming a position of
leadership. Although some of Roosevelt's aides were skeptical of the agreements
made, most came back confident that they had succeeded in laying a basis for
continued partnership. As Harry Hopkins later recalled, "we really
believed in our hearts that this was the dawn of the new day we had all been
praying for. The Russians have proved that they can be reasonable and far-seeing
and there wasn't any doubt in the minds of the president or any of us that we
could live with them and get along with them peacefully for as far into the
future as any of us could imagine."
In fact, two
disquietingly different perceptions of the Soviet Union existed as the war drew
to an end. Some Washington officials believed that the mystery of Russia was no
mystery at all, simply a reflection of a national history in which suspicion of
outsiders was natural, given repeated invasions from Western Europe and rampant
hostility toward communism on the part of Western powers. Former Ambassador to
Moscow Joseph Davies believed that the way to cut through that suspicion was to
adopt "the simple approach of assuming that what they say, they mean."
On the basis of his personal negotiations with the Russians, presidential aide
Harry Hopkins shared the same confidence.
The majority of
well-informed Americans, however, endorsed the opposite position. It was folly,
one newspaper correspondent wrote, "to prettify Stalin, whose internal
homicide record is even longer than Hitler's." Hitler and Stalin were two
of the same breed, former Ambassador to Russia William Bullitt insisted. Each
wanted to spread his power "to the ends of the earth. Stalin, like Hitler,
will not stop. He can only be stopped." According to Bullitt, any
alternative view implied "a conversion of Stalin as striking as the
conversion of Saul on the road to Damascus." Senator Robert Taft agreed.
It made no sense, he insisted, to base U.S. policy toward the Soviet Union
"on the delightful theory that Mr. Stalin in the end will turn out to have
an angelic nature." Drawing on the historical precedents of the purge
trials and traditional American hostility to communism, totalitarianism, and Stalin,
those who held this point of view saw little hope of compromise. "There is
as little difference between communism and fascism," Monsignor Fulton J.
Sheen said, "as there is between burglary and larceny." The only
appropriate response was force. Instead of "leaning over backward to be
nice to the descendents of Genghis Khan," General George Patton suggested,
"[we] should dictate to them and do it now and in no uncertain
terms." Within such a frame of reference, the lessons of history and of
ideological incompatibility seemed to permit no possibility of compromise.
But Roosevelt clearly
felt that there was a third way, a path of mutual accommodation that would
sustain and nourish the prospects of postwar partnership without ignoring the
realities of geopolitics. The choice in his mind was clear. "We shall have
to take the responsibility for world collaboration," he told Congress,
"or we shall have to bear the responsibility for another world
conflict." President Roosevelt was neither politically naive nor stupid. Even
though committed to the Atlantic Charter's ideals of self-determination and
territorial integrity, he recognized the legitimate need of the Soviet Union
for national security. For him, the process of politics—informed by thirty-five
years of skilled practice—involved striking a deal that both sides could live
with. Roosevelt acknowledged the brutality, the callousness, the tyranny of the
Soviet system. Indeed, in 1940 he had called Russia as absolute a dictatorship
as existed anywhere. But that did not mean a solution was impossible, or that
one should withdraw from the struggle to find a basis for world peace. As he
was fond of saying about negotiations with Russia, "it is permitted to
walk with the devil until the bridge is crossed."
The problem was that, as
Roosevelt defined the task of finding a path of accommodation, it rested solely
on his shoulders. The president possessed an almost mystical confidence in his
own capacity to break through policy differences based on economic structures
and political systems, and to develop a personal relationship of trust that
would transcend impersonal forces of division. "I know you will not mind
my being brutally frank when I tell you," he wrote Churchill in 1942,
"[that] I think I can personally handle Stalin better than either your
Foreign Office or my State Department. Stalin hates the guts of all your top
people. He thinks he likes me better, and I hope he will continue to do
so." Notwithstanding the seeming naivete of such statements, Roosevelt
appeared right, in at least this one regard. The Soviets did seem to place
their faith in him, perhaps thinking that American foreign policy was as much a
product of one man's decisions as their own. Roosevelt evidently thought the
same way, telling Bullitt, in one of their early foreign policy discussions,
"it's my responsibility and not yours; and I'm going to play my
hunch."
The tragedy, of course,
was that the man who perceived that fostering world peace was his own personal
responsibility never lived to carry out his vision. Long in declining health,
suffering from advanced arteriosclerosis and a serious cardiac problem, he had
gone to Warm Springs, Georgia, to recover from the ordeal of Yalta and the
congressional session. On April 12, Roosevelt suffered a massive cerebral
hemorrhage and died. As word spread across the country, the stricken look on
people's faces told those who had not yet heard the news the awful dimensions
of what had happened. "He was the only president I ever knew," one
woman said. In London, Churchill declared that he felt as if he had suffered a
physical blow. Stalin greeted the American ambassador in silence, holding his
hand for thirty seconds. The leader of the world's greatest democracy would not
live to see the victory he had striven so hard to achieve.
2.2 The
Truman Doctrine.
Few people
were less prepared for the challenge of becoming president. Although well-read
in history, Truman's experience in foreign policy was minimal. His most famous
comment on diplomacy had been a statement to a reporter in 1941 that "if
we see that Germany is winning [the war] we ought to help Russia, and if Russia
is winning we ought to help Germany and that way let them kill as many as
possible, although I don't want to see Hitler victorious under any circumstances."
As vice-president, Truman had been excluded from all foreign policy discussions.
He knew nothing about the Manhattan Project. The new president, Henry Stimson
noted, labored under the "terrific handicap of coming into... an office
where the threads of information were so multitudinous that only long previous
familiarity could allow him to control them." More to the point were
Truman's own comments: "They didn't tell me anything about what was going
on. . . . Everybody around here that should know anything about foreign affairs
is out." Faced with burdens sufficiently awesome to intimidate any
individual, Truman had to act quickly on a succession of national security
questions, aided only by his native intelligence and a no-nonsense attitude reflected
in the now-famous slogan that adorned his desk: "The Buck Stops
Here."
Truman's dilemma was
compounded by the extent to which Roosevelt had acted" as his own
secretary of state, sharing with almost no one his plans for the postwar
period. Roosevelt placed little trust in the State Department's bureaucracy,
disagreed with the suspicion exhibited toward Russia by most foreign service
officers, and for the most part appeared to believe that he alone held the
secret formula for accommodation with the Soviets. Ultimately that formula
presumed the willingness of the Russian leadership "to give the Government
of Poland [and other Eastern European countries] an external appearance
of independence [italics added]," in the words of Roosevelt's aide
Admiral William Leahy. In the month before his death, FDR had evidently begun
to question that presumption, becoming increasingly concerned about Soviet
behavior. Had he lived, he may well have adopted a significantly tougher
position toward Stalin than he had taken previously. Yet in his last
communication with Churchill, Roosevelt was still urging the British prime
minister to "minimize the Soviet problem as much as possible . . . because
these problems, in one form or another, seem to arrive everyday and most of
them straighten out." If Stalin's intentions still remained difficult to
fathom so too did Roosevelt's. And now Truman was in charge, with neither
Roosevelt's experience to inform him, nor a clear sense of Roosevelt's
perceptions to offer him direction.
Without being able to
analyze at leisure all the complex information that was relevant, Truman
solicited the best advice he could from those who were most knowledgeable about
foreign relations. Hurrying back from Moscow, Averell Harriman sought the
president's ear, lobbying intensively with White House and State Department
officials for his position that "irreconcilable differences"
separated the Soviet Union and the United States, with the Russians seeking
"the extension of the Soviet system with secret police, [and] extinction
of freedom of speech" everywhere they could. Earlier, Harriman had been
well disposed toward the Soviet leadership, enthusiastically endorsing Russian
interest in a postwar loan and advocating cooperation wherever possible. But
now Harriman perceived a hardening of Soviet attitudes and a more aggressive
posture toward control over Eastern Europe. The Russians had just signed a
separate peace treaty with the Lublin (pro-Soviet) Poles, and after offering
safe passage to sixteen pro-Western representatives of the Polish resistance to
conduct discussions about a government of national unity, had suddenly arrested
the sixteen and held them incommunicado. America's previous policy of
generosity toward the Soviets had been "misinterpreted in Moscow,"
Harriman believed, leading the Russians to think they had carte blanche to
proceed as they wished. In Harriman's view, the Soviets were engaged in a
"barbarian invasion of Europe." Whether or not Roosevelt would have
accepted Harriman's analysis, to Truman the ambassador's words made eminent
sense. The international situation was like a poker game, Truman told one
friend, and he was not going to let Stalin beat him.
Just ten days after
taking office, Truman had the opportunity to play his own hand with Molotov.
The Soviet foreign minister had been sent by Stalin to attend the first U.N.
conference in San Francisco both as a gesture to Roosevelt's memory and as a
means of sizing up the new president. In a private conversation with former
Ambassador to Moscow Joseph Davies, Molotov expressed his concern that
"full information" about Russian-U.S. relations might have died with
FDR and that "differences of interpretation and possible complications
[might] arise which would not occur if Roosevelt lived." Himself worried
that Truman might make "snap judgments," Davies urged Molotov to
explain fully Soviet policies vis-a-vis Poland and Eastern Europe in order to
avoid future conflict.
Truman
implemented the same no-nonsense approach when it came to decisions about the
atomic bomb. Astonishingly, it was not until the day after Truman's meeting
with Molotov that he was first briefed about the bomb. By that time, $2 billion
had already been spent on what Stimson called "the most terrible weapon
ever known in human history." Immediately, Truman grasped the significance
of the information. "I can't tell you what this is," he told his
secretary, "but if it works, and pray God it does, it will save many
American lives." Here was a weapon that might not only bring the war to a
swift conclusion, but also provide a critical lever of influence in all postwar
relations. As James Byrnes told the president, the bomb would "put us in a
position to dictate our own terms at the end of the war."
In the
years subsequent to Hiroshima and Nagasaki, historians have debated the wisdom
of America's being the first nation to use such a horrible weapon of
destruction and have questioned the motivation leading up to that decision.
Those who defend the action point to ferocious Japanese resistance at Okinawa
and Iwo Jima, and the likelihood of even greater loss of life if an invasion of
Japan became necessary. Support for such a position comes even from some
Japanese. "If the military had its way," one military expert in Japan
has said, "we would have fought until all 80 million Japanese were dead.
Only the atomic bomb saved me. Not me alone, but many Japanese. . . ."
Those morally repulsed by the incineration of human flesh that resulted from
the A-bomb, on the other hand, doubt the necessity of dropping it, citing later
U.S. intelligence surveys which concluded that "Japan would have
surrendered even if the atomic bombs had not been dropped, even if Russia had
not entered the war, and even if no invasion had been planned or contemplated."
Distinguished military leaders such as Dwight Eisenhower later opposed use of
the bomb. "First, the Japanese were ready to surrender, and it wasn't
necessary to hit them with that awful thing," Eisenhower noted.
"Second, I hated to see our country be the first to use such a
weapon." In light of such statements, some have asked why there was no
effort to communicate the horror of the bomb to America's adversaries either
through a demonstration explosion or an ultimatum. Others have questioned
whether the bomb would have been used on non-Asians, although the fire-bombing
of Dresden claimed more victims than Hiroshima. Perhaps most seriously, some
have charged that the bomb was used primarily to intimidate the Soviet Union
rather than to secure victory over Japan.
Although revulsion at
America's deployment of atomic weapons is understandable, it now appears that
no one in the inner circles of American military and political power ever
seriously entertained the possibility of not using the bomb. As Henry
Stimson later recalled, "it was our common objective, throughout the war,
to be the first to produce an atomic weapon and use it. ... At no time, from
1941 to 1945, did I ever hear it suggested by the president, or by any other
responsible member of the government, that atomic energy should not be used in
the war." As historians Martin Sherwin and Barton Bernstein have shown,
the momentum behind the Manhattan Project was such that no one ever debated the
underlying assumption that, once perfected, nuclear weapons would be used.
General George Marshall told the British, as well as Truman and Stimson, that a
land invasion of Japan would cause casualties ranging from five hundred
thousand to more than a million American troops. Any president who refused to
use atomic weapons in the face of such projections could logically be accused
of needlessly sacrificing American lives. Moreover, the enemy was the same
nation that had unleashed a wanton and brutal attack on Pearl Harbor. As Truman
later explained to a journalist, "When you deal with a beast, you have to
treat him as a beast." Although many of the scientists who had seen the
first explosion of the bomb in New Mexico were in awe of its destructive
potential and hoped to find some way to avoid its use in war, the idea of a
demonstration met with skepticism. Only one or two bombs existed. What if, in a
demonstration, they failed to detonate? Thus, as horrible as it may seem in
retrospect, no one ever seriously doubted the necessity of dropping the bomb on
Japan once the weapon was perfected.
On the Russian issue,
however, there now seems little doubt that administration officials thought
long and hard about the bomb's impact on postwar relations with the Soviet
Union. Faced with what seemed to be the growing intransigence of the Soviet
Union toward virtually all postwar questions, Truman and his advisors concluded
that possession of the weapon would give the United States unprecedented
leverage to push Russia toward a more accommodating position. Senator Edwin
Johnson stated the equation crassly, but clearly. "God Almighty in his
infinite wisdom," the Senator said, "[has] dropped the atomic bomb in
our lap ... [now] with vision and guts and plenty of atomic bombs, . . . [the
U.S. can] compel mankind to adopt a policy of lasting peace ... or be burned to
a crisp." Stating the same argument with more sophistication prior to
Hiroshima, Stimson told Truman that the bomb might well "force a favorable
settlement of Eastern European questions with the Russians." Truman
agreed. If the weapon worked, he noted, "I'll certainly have a hammer on
those boys."
Use of the bomb as a
diplomatic lever played a pivotal role in Truman's preparation for his first
meeting with Stalin at Potsdam. Not only would the conference address such
critical questions as Eastern Europe, Germany, and Russia's involvement in the
war against Japan;
It would also provide a
crucial opportunity for America to drive home with forcefulness its foreign
policy beliefs about future relationships with Russia. Stimson and other
advisors urged the president to hold off on any confrontation with Stalin until
the bomb was ready. "Over any such tangled wave of problems," Stimson
noted, "the bomb's secret will be dominant. ... It seems a terrible thing
to gamble with such big stakes and diplomacy without having your master card in
your hand." Although Truman could not delay the meeting because of a prior
commitment to hold it in July, the president was well aware of the bomb's
significance. Already noted for his brusque and assertive manner, Truman
suddenly took on new confidence in the midst of the Potsdam negotiations when
word arrived that the bomb had successfully been tested. "He was a changed
man," Churchill noted. "He told the Russians just where they got on and
off and generally bossed the whole meeting." Now, the agenda was changed.
Russian involvement in the Japanese war no longer seemed so important.
Moreover, the United States had as a bargaining chip the most powerful weapon
ever unleashed. Three days later, Truman walked up to Stalin and casually told
him that the United States had "perfected a very powerful explosive, which
we're going to use against the Japanese." No mention was made of sharing
information about the bomb, or of future cooperation to avoid an arms race.
Yet the
very nature of the new weapon proved a mixed blessing, making it as much a
source of provocation as of diplomatic leverage. Strategic bombing surveys
throughout the war had shown that mass bombings, far from demoralizing the
enemy, often redoubled his commitment to resist. An American monopoly on atomic
weapons would, in all likelihood, have the same effect on the Russians, a proud
people. As Stalin told an American diplomat later, "the nuclear weapon is
something with which you frighten people [who have] weak nerves." Yet if
the war had proven anything, it was that Russian nerves were remarkably strong.
Rather than intimidate the Soviets, Dean Acheson pointed out, it was more
likely that evidence of Anglo-American cooperation in the Manhattan Project
would seem to them "unanswerable evidence of ... a combination against
them. ... It is impossible that a government as powerful and power conscious as
the Soviet government could fail to react vigorously to the situation. It must
and will exert every energy to restore the loss of power which the situation
has produced."
In
fact, news of the bomb's development simply widened the gulf further between
the superpowers, highlighting the mistrust that existed between them, with
sources of antagonism increasing far faster than efforts at cooperation. On May
11, two days after Germany surrendered—and two weeks after the Truman-Molotov
confrontation—America had abruptly terminated all lend-lease shipments to the
Soviet Union that were not directly related to the war against Japan.
Washington even ordered ships in the mid-Atlantic to turn around. The action
had been taken largely in rigid bureaucratic compliance with a new law
governing lend-lease just enacted by Congress, but Truman had been warned of
the need to handle the matter in a way that was sensitive to Soviet pride.
Instead, he signed the termination order without even reading it. Although
eventually some shipments were resumed, the damage had been done. The action
was "brutal," Stalin later told Harry Hopkins, implemented in a
"scornful and abrupt manner." Had the United States consulted Russia
about the issue "frankly" and on "a friendly basis," the
Soviet dictator said, "much could have been done"; but if the action
"was designed as pressure on the Russians in order to soften them up, then
it was a fundamental mistake."
Russian behavior through
these months, on the other hand, offered little encouragement for the belief
that friendship and cooperation ranked high on the Soviet agenda. In addition
to violating the spirit of the Yalta accords by jailing the sixteen members of
the Polish underground and signing a separate peace treaty with the Lublin
Poles, Stalin seemed more intent on reviving and validating his reputation as
architect of the purges than as one who wished to collaborate in spreading
democracy. He jailed thousands of Russian POWs returning from German prison
camps, as if their very presence on foreign soil had made them enemies of the
Russian state. One veteran was imprisoned because he had accepted a present
from a British comrade in arms, another for making a critical comment about
Stalin in a letter. Even Molotov's wife was sent to Siberia. In the meantime,
hundreds of thousands of minority nationalities in the Soviet Union were
removed forcibly from their homelands when they protested the attempted
obliteration of their ancient identities. Some Westerners speculated that
Stalin was clinically psychotic, so paranoid about the erosion of his control
over the Russian people that he would do anything to close Soviet borders and
prevent the Russian people from getting a taste of what life in a more open
society would be like. Winston Churchill, for example, wondered whether Stalin
might not be more fearful of Western friendship than of Western hostility,
since greater cooperation with the noncommunist world could well lead to a
dismantling of the rigid totalitarian control he previously had exerted. For
those American diplomats who were veterans of service in Moscow before the war,
Soviet actions and attitudes seemed all too reminiscent of the viselike terror
they remembered from the worst days of the 1930s.
When Truman, Stalin, and
Churchill met in Potsdam in July 1945, these suspicions were temporarily
papered over, but no progress was made on untying the Gordian knots that
plagued the wartime alliance. Truman sought to improve the Allies' postwar
settlement with Italy, hoping to align that country more closely with the West.
Stalin agreed on the condition that changes favorable to the Soviets be
approved for Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria, and Finland. When Truman replied that
there had been no free elections in those countries, Stalin retorted that there
had been none in Italy either. On the issue of general reparations the three
powers agreed to treat each occupation zone separately. As a result, one
problem was solved, but in the process the future division of Germany was
almost assured. The tone of the discussions was clearly not friendly. Truman
raised the issue of the infamous Katyn massacre, where Soviet troops killed
thousands of Polish soldiers and bulldozed them into a common grave. When
Truman asked Stalin directly what had happened to the Polish officers, the
Soviet dictator responded: "they went away." After Churchill insisted
that an iron fence had come down around British representatives in Romania,
Stalin dismissed the charges as "all fairy tales." No major conflicts
were resolved, and the key problems of reparation amounts, four-power control
over Germany, the future of Eastern Europe, and the structure of any permanent
peace settlement were simply referred to the Council of Foreign Ministers.
There, not surprisingly, they festered, while the pace toward confrontation
accelerated.
The first six months of
1946 represented a staccato series of Cold War events, accompanied by
increasingly inflammatory rhetoric. In direct violation of a wartime agreement
that all allied forces would leave Iran within six months of the war's end,
Russia continued its military occupation of the oil-rich region of Azerbaijan.
Responding to the Iranian threat, the United States demanded a U.N.
condemnation of the Soviet presence in Azerbaijan and, when Russian tanks were
seen entering the area, prepared for a direct confrontation. "Now we will
give it to them with both barrels," James Byrnes declared. Unless the
United States stood firm, one State Department official warned, "Azerbaijan
[will] prove to [be] the first shot fired in the Third World War." Faced
with such clear-cut determination, the Soviets ultimately withdrew from Iran.
Yet the tensions between
the two powers continued to mount. In early February, Stalin issued what
Supreme Court Justice William Douglas called the "Declaration of World War
III," insisting that war was inevitable as long as capitalism survived and
calling for massive sacrifice at home. A month later Winston Churchill—with
Truman at his side—responded at Fulton, Missouri, declaring that "from
Stetting in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has
descended across the [European] continent." Claiming that "God has
willed" the United States and Britain to hold a monopoly over atomic
weapons, Churchill called for a "fraternal association of the English
speaking people" against their common foes. Although Truman made no public
statement, privately he had told Byrnes in January: "I'm tired of babying
the Soviets. They [must be] faced with an iron fist and strong language. . . .
Only one language do they understand—how many divisions have you?" Stalin,
meanwhile, charged Britain and the United States with repressing democratic
insurgents in Greece, declaring that it was the western Allies, not the Soviet
Union, that endangered world peace. "When Mr. Churchill calls for a new
war," Molotov told a foreign ministers' meeting in May, "and makes
militant speeches on two continents, he represents the worst of
twentieth-century imperialism."
During the spring and
summer, clashes occurred on virtually all the major issues of the Cold War.
After having told the Soviet Union that the State Department had
"lost" its $6 billion loan request made in January 1945, the United
States offered a $1 billion loan in the spring of 1946 as long as the Soviet
Union agreed to join the World Bank and accept the credit procedures and
controls of that body. Not surprisingly, the Russians refused, announcing
instead a new five-year plan that would promote economic self-sufficiency.
Almost paranoid about keeping Westerners out of Russia, Stalin had evidently
concluded that participation in a Western-run financial consortium was too
serious a threat to his own total authority. "Control of their border
areas," the historian Walter LaFeber has noted, "was worth more to
the Russians than a billion, or even ten billion dollars." A year earlier the
response might have been different. But 1946 was a "year of cement,"
with little if any willingness to accept flexibility. In Germany, meanwhile,
the Russians rejected a Western proposal for unifying the country and instead
determined to build up their own zone. The United States reciprocated by
declaring it would no longer cooperate with Russia by removing reparations from
the west to the east. The actions guaranteed a permanent split of Germany and
coincided with American plans to rebuild the West German economy.
The culminating breakdown
of U.S.-Soviet relations came over the failure to secure agreement on the
international control of atomic energy. After Potsdam, some American
policymakers had urged the president to take a new approach on sharing such
control with the Soviet Union. The atom bomb, Henry Stimson warned Truman in
the fall of 1945, would dominate America's relations with Russia. "If we
fail to approach them now and continue to negotiate with . . . this weapon
rather ostentatiously on our hip, their suspicions and their distrust of our
purposes and motives will increase." Echoing the same them, Dr. Harold
Urey, a leading atomic scientist, told the Senate that by making and storing
atomic weapons, "we are guilty of beginning the arms race." Furthermore,
there was an inherent problem with the "gun on our hip" approach. As
the scientist Vannevar Bush noted, "there is no powder in the gun, [nor]
could [it] be drawn," unless the United States were willing to deploy the
A-bomb to settle diplomatic disputes. Recognizing this, Truman set Dean Acheson
and David Lilienthal to work in the winter of 1945—46 to prepare a plan for
international control.
But by the time the
American proposal had been completed, much of the damage in Soviet-American
relations seemed irreparable. Although the Truman plan envisioned ultimate
sharing of international control, it left the United States with an atomic
monopoly—and in a dominant position—until the very last stage. The Soviets
would have no veto power over inspections or sanctions, and even at the end of
the process, the United States would control the majority of votes within the
body responsible for developing peaceful uses of atomic energy inside the
Soviet Union. When the Russians asked to negotiate about the specifics of the
plan, they were told they must either accept the entire package or nothing at
all. In the context of Soviet-American relations in 1946, the result was
predictable—the genie of the atomic arms race would remain outside the bottle.
Not all influential
Americans were "pleased by the growing polarization. Averell Harriman,
who a year earlier had been in the forefront of those demanding a hard-line
position from Truman, now pulled back somewhat. "We must recognize that we
occupy the same planet as the Russians," he said, "and whether we
like it or not, disagreeable as they may be, we have to find some method of
getting along." The columnist Walter Lippmann, deeply concerned about the
direction of events, wondered whether the inexperience and personal predilections
of some of America's negotiators might not be part of the problem. Nor were all
the signs negative. After his initial confrontation with Molotov, Truman
appeared to have second thoughts, sending Harry Hopkins to Moscow to attempt to
find some common ground with Stalin on Poland and Eastern Europe. The Russians,
in turn, had not been totally aggressive. They withdrew from Hungary after free
elections in that country had led to the establishment of a noncommunist
regime. Czechoslovakia was also governed by a coalition government with a
Western-style parliament. The British, at least, announced themselves satisfied
with the election process in Bulgaria. Even in Romania, some concessions were
made to include elements more favorably disposed to the West. The Russians
finally backed down in Iran—under considerable pressure—and would do so again
in a dispute over the Turkish straits in the late summer of 1946.
Still, the events of 1946
had the cumulative effect of creating an aura of inevitability about bipolar
confrontation in the world. The preponderance of energy in each country seemed
committed to the side of suspicion and hostility rather than mutual
accommodation. If Stalin's February prediction of inevitable war between
capitalism and communism embodied in its purest form Russia's jaundiced
perception of relations between the two countries, an eight-thousand-word
telegram from George Kennan to the State Department articulated the dominant
frame of reference within which Soviet actions would be perceived by U.S. officials.
Perhaps the preeminent expert on the Soviets, and a veteran of service
in Moscow in the thirties as well as the forties, Kennan had been asked to
prepare an analysis of Stalin's speech. Responding in words intended to command
attention to Washington, Kennan declared that the United States was confronted
with a "political force committed fanatically to the belief that [with
the] United States there can be no permanent modus vivendi, that it is
desirable and necessary that the internal harmony of our society be broken if
Soviet power is to be secure." According' to Kennan, the Russians truly
believed the world to be divided permanently into capitalist and socialist
camps, with the Soviet Union dedicated to "ever new heights of military
power" even as it sought to subvert its enemies through an
"underground operating directorate of world communism." The analysis
was frightening, confirming the fears of those most disturbed by the Soviet
system's denial of human rights and hardline posture toward Western demands for
free elections and open borders in occupied Europe.
Almost immediately, the
Kennan telegram became required reading for the entire diplomatic and military
establishment in Washington.
2.3 The Marshall Plan.
The chief virtue of the
plan Marshall and his aides were Grafting was its fusion of these political and
economic concerns. As Truman told a Baylor University audience in March 1947,
"peace, freedom, and world trade are indivisible. . . . We must not go
through the '3os again." Since free enterprise was seen as the foundation
for democracy and prosperity, helping European economies would both assure
friendly governments abroad and additional jobs at home. To accomplish that ^
goal, however, the United States would need to give economic aid directly
rather than through the United Nations, since only under those circumstances
would American control be assured. Ideally, the Marshall Plan would provide an
economic arm to the political strategy embodied —in the Truman Doctrine.
Moreover, if presented as a program in which even Eastern European countries
could participate, it would provide, at last potentially, a means of including
pro-Soviet countries and breaking Stalin's political and economic domination
over Eastern Europe.
On that basis, Marshall
dramatically announced his proposal at Harvard University's commencement on
June 5, 1947. "Our policy is directed not against any country or
doctrine," Marshall said, "but against hunger, poverty, desperation,
and chaos. Its purpose should be revival of a working economy. Any government
that is willing to assist in the task of recovery will find full cooperation
... on the part of the United States government." Responding, French
Foreign Minister George Bidault invited officials throughout Europe, including
the Soviet Union, to attend a conference in Paris to draw up a plan of action.
Poland and Czechoslovakia expressed interest, and Molotov himself came to Paris
with eighty-nine aides.
Rather than inaugurate a new era of cooperation,
however, the next few days simply reaffirmed how far polarization had already
extended. Molotov urged that each country present its own needs independently
to the United States. Western European countries, on the other hand, insisted
that all the countries cooperate in a joint proposal for American
consideration. Since the entire concept presumed extensive sharing of economic
data on each country's resources and liabilities, as well as Western control
over how the aid would be expended, the Soviets angrily walked out of the deliberations.
In fact, the United States never believed that the Russians would participate
in the project, knowing that it was a violation of every Soviet precept to open
their economic records to examination and control by capitalist outsiders.
Furthermore, U.S. strategy was premised on a major rebuilding of German
industry—something profoundly threatening to the Russians. Ideally, Americans
viewed a thriving Germany as the foundation for revitalizing the economies of
all Western European countries, and providing the key to prosperity on both
sides of the Atlantic. To a remarkable extent, that was precisely the result of
the Marshall Plan. Understandably, such a prospect frightened the Soviets, but
the consequence was to further the split between East and West, and in
particular, to undercut the possibility of promoting further cooperation with
countries like Hungary and Czechoslovakia.
In the weeks and months
after the Russians left Paris, the final pieces of the Cold War were set in
place. Shortly after the Soviet departure from Paris the Russians announced the
creation of a series of bilateral trade agreements called the "Molotov
Plan," designed to link Eastern bloc countries and provide a Soviet answer
to the Marshall Plan. Within the same week the Russians created a new Communist
Information Bureau (Cominform), including representatives from the major
Western European communist parties, to serve as a vehicle for imposing
Stalinist control on anyone who might consider deviating from the party line.
Speaking at the Cominform meeting in August, Andre Zhdanov issued the Soviet
Union's rebuttal to the Truman Doctrine. The United States, he charged, was
organizing the countries of the Near East, Western Europe, and South America
into an alliance committed to the destruction of communism. Now, he said, the
"new democracies" of Eastern Europe—plus their allies in developing
countries—must form a counter bloc. The world would thus be made up of
"two camps," each ideologically, politically, and, to a growing extent,
militarily defined by its opposition to the other.
To assure that no one
misunderstood, Russia moved quickly to impose a steel-like grip on Eastern
Europe. In August 1947 the Soviets purged all left-wing, anticommunist leaders
from Hungary and then rigged elections to assure a pro-Soviet regime there. Six
months later, in February 1948, Stalin moved on Czechoslovakia as well,
insisting on the abolition of independent parties and sending Soviet troops to
the Czech border to back up Soviet demands for an all new communist government.
After Foreign Minister Jan Masaryk either jumped or was pushed from a window in
Prague, the last vestige of resistance faded. "We are [now] faced with
exactly the same situation . . . Britain and France faced in 1938-39 with Hitler,"
Truman wrote. The Czech coup coincided with overwhelming approval of the
Marshall Plan by the American Congress. Two weeks later, on March 5, General
Lucius Clay sent his telegram from Germany warning of imminent war with Russia.
Shortly thereafter, Truman called on Congress to implement Universal Military
Training for all Americans. (The plan was never put in place.) By the end of
the month Russia had instituted a year-long blockade of all supplies to Berlin
in protest against the West's decision to unify her occupation zones in Germany
and institute currency reform. Before the end of spring, the Brussels Pact had
brought together the major powers of Western Europe in a mutual defense pact
that a year later would provide the basis for NATO. If the Truman Doctrine, in
Bernard Baruch's words, had been "a declaration of ideological or
religious war," the Marshall Plan, the Molotov Plan, and subsequent
developments in Eastern Europe represented the economic, political, and
military demarcations that would define the terrain on which the war would be
fought. The Cold War had begun.
Chapter
3: The Role of Cold War in American History and Diplomacy.
3.1
Declaration of the Cold War.
In late
February 1947, a British official journeyed to the State Department to inform
Dean Acheson that the crushing burden of Britain's economic crisis prevented
her from any longer accepting responsibility for the economic and military
stability of Greece and Turkey. The message, Secretary of State George Marshall
noted, "was tantamount to British abdication from the Middle East, with
obvious implications as to their successor." Conceivably, America could
have responded quietly, continuing the steady stream of financial support
already going into the area. Despite aid to the insurgents from Yugoslavia and
Bulgaria, the war going on in Greece was primarily a civil struggle, with the
British side viewed by many as reactionary in its politics. But instead, Truman
administration officials seized the moment as the occasion for a dramatic new
commitment to fight communism. In their view, Greece and Turkey could well hold
the key to the future of Europe itself. Hence they decided to ask Congress for
$400 million in military and economic aid. In the process, the administration
publicly defined postwar diplomacy, for the first time, as a universal conflict
between the forces of good and the forces of evil.
Truman portrayed the
issue as he did, at least in part, because his aides had failed to convince
Congressmen about the merits of the case on grounds of self-interest alone.
Americans were concerned about the Middle East for many reasons—preservation of
political stability, guarantee of access to mineral resources, a need to
assure a prosperous market for American goods. Early drafts of speeches on the
issue had focused specifically on economic questions. America could not afford,
one advisor noted, to allow Greece and similar areas to "spiral downward
into economic anarchy." But such arguments, another advisor noted,
"made the whole thing sound like an investment prospectus." Indeed,
when Secretary of State Marshall used such arguments of self-interest with
Congressmen, his words fell on deaf ears, particularly given the commitment of
Republicans to cut government spending to the bone. It was at that moment. Dean
Acheson recalled, that "in desperation I whispered to [Marshall] a request
to speak. This was my crisis. For a week I had nurtured it."
When Acheson took the
floor, he transformed the atmosphere in the room. The issue, he declared, was
the effort by Russian communism to seize dominance over three continents, and
encircle and capture Western Europe. "Like apples in a barrel infected by
the corruption of one rotten one, the corruption of Greece would infect Iran
and alter the Middle East . . . Africa . . . Italy and France." The
struggle was ultimate, Acheson concluded. "Not since Rome and Carthage has
there been such a polarization of power on this earth. . . . We and we alone
are in a position to break up" the Soviet quest for world domination.
Suddenly, the Congressmen sat up and took notice. That argument, Senator
Arthur Vandenberg told the president, would be successful. If Truman wanted his
program of aid to be approved, he would—like Acheson—have to "scare
hell" out of the American people.
By the time Truman came
before Congress on March 12, the issue was no longer whether the United States
should extend economic aid to Greece and Turkey on a basis of self-interest,
but rather whether America was willing to sanction the spread of tyrannical
communism everywhere in the world. Facing the same dilemma Roosevelt had
confronted during the 1930S in his effort to get Americans ready for war,
Truman sensed that only if the issues were posed as directly related to the
nation's fundamental moral concern—not just self-interest— would there be a
possibility of winning political support. Hence, as Truman defined the
question, the world had to choose "between alternative ways of life."
One option was "free," based on "representative government, free
elections, guarantees of individual liberty, and freedom of speech and
religion." The other option was "tyranny," based on "terror
and oppression, a controlled press and radio, . . . and a suppression of
personal freedoms." Given a choice between freedom and totalitarianism,
Truman concluded, "it must be the policy of the United States to support
free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities."
Drawing
on the "worst case" scenario implicit in Kennan's telegram, Truman,
in effect, had presented the issue of American-Soviet relations as one of pure
ideological and moral conflict. There were some who criticized him. Senator
Robert Taft, for example, wondered whether, if the United States took
responsibility for Greece and Turkey, Americans could object to the Russians
continuing their domination over Eastern Europe. Secretary of State Marshall
was disturbed at "the extent to which the anticommunist element of the
speech was stressed." And George Kennan, concerned over how his views had
been used, protested against the president's strident tone. But Truman and
Acheson had understood the importance of defining the issue on grounds of patriotism
and moral principle. If the heart of the question was the universal struggle of
freedom against tryanny—not taking sides in a civil war— who could object to
what the government proposed? It was, Senator Arthur Vandenberg noted,
"almost like a presidential request for a declaration of war. . . . There
is precious little we can do except say yes." By mid-May, Truman's aid
package had passed Congress overwhelmingly.
On the same day the
Truman Doctrine received final approval, George Marshall and his aides at the
State Department were busy shaping what Truman would call the second half of
the same walnut— the Marshall Plan of massive economic support to rebuild
Western Europe. Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Belgium—all were devastated by
the war, their cities lying in rubble, their industrial base gutted. It was
difficult to know if they could survive, yet the lessons of World War I
suggested that political democracy and stability depended on the presence of a
healthy and thriving economic order. Already American officials were concerned
that Italy—and perhaps France—would succumb to the political appeal of native
communists and become victims of what William Bullitt had called the "red
amoeba" spreading all across Europe. Furthermore, America's selfish
economic interests demanded strong trading partners in Western Europe. "No
nation in modern times," Assistant Secretary of State Will Clayton had
said, "can long expect to enjoy a rising standard of living without
increased foreign trade." America imported from Europe only half of what
it exported, and Western Europe was quickly running out of dollars to pay for
American goods. If some form of massive support to reconstruct Europe's economy
were not developed, economic decay there would spread, unemployment in America
would increase, and political instability could well lead to communist
takeovers of hitherto "friendly" counties.
3.2 Cold War Issues.
Although
historians have debated for years the cause of the Cold War, virtually everyone
agrees that it developed around five major issues:
Poland, the structure of
governments in other Eastern European countries, the future of Germany,
economic reconstruction of Europe, and international policies toward the atomic
bomb and atomic energy. All of these intersected, so that within a few months,
it became almost impossible to separate one from the other as they interacted
to shape the emergence of a bipolar world. Each issue in its own way also
reflected the underlying confusion and conflict surrounding the competing
doctrines of "universalist" versus "sphere-of-influence"
diplomacy. Examination of these fundamental questions is essential if we are
to comprehend how and why the tragedy of the Cold War evolved during the three
years after Germany's defeat.
Poland constituted the
most intractable and profound dilemma facing Soviet-U.S. relations. As
Secretary of State Edward Stettinius observed in 1945, Poland was "the
big apple in the barrel." Unfortunately, it also symbolized, for both
sides, everything that the war had been fought for. From a Soviet perspective,
Poland represented the quintessence of Russia's national security needs. On
three occasions, Poland had served as the avenue for devastating invasions of
Russian territory. It was imperative, given Russian history, that Poland be
governed by a regime supportive of the Soviet Union. But Poland also represented,
both in fact and in symbol, everything for which the Western Allies had fought.
Britain and France had declared war on Germany in September 1939 when Hitler
invaded Poland, thus honoring their mutual defense pact with that victimized
country. It seemed unthinkable that one could wage war for six years and end up
with another totalitarian country in control of Poland. Surely if the Atlantic
Charter signified anything, it required defending the right of the Polish
people to determine their own destiny. The presence of 7 million
Polish-American voters offered a constant, if unnecessary, reminder that such
issues of self-determination could not be dismissed lightly. Thus, the first
issue confronting the Allies in building a postwar world would also be one on
which compromise was virtually impossible, at least without incredible diplomatic
delicacy, political subtlety, and profound appreciation, by each ally, of the
other's needs and priorities.
Roosevelt appears to have
understood the tortuous path he would have to travel in order to find a
peaceful resolution of the conflict. Given his own commitment to the Atlantic
Charter, rooted in both domestic political reasons and personal conviction, he
recognized the need to advocate an independent and democratic government for
the Polish people. "Poland must be reconstituted a great nation," he
told the country during the 1944 election. Yet the president also repeatedly
acknowledged that the Russians must have a "friendly" government in Warsaw.
Somehow, Roosevelt hoped to find a way to subordinate these two conflicting
positions to the higher priority of postwar peace. "The President,"
Harry Hopkins said in 1943, "did not intend to go to the Peace Conference
and bargain with Poland or the other small states; as far as Poland is
concerned, the important thing [was] to set it up in a way that [would] help
maintain the peace of the world."
The issue was first
joined at the Tehran conference. There, Churchill and Roosevelt endorsed
Stalin's position that Poland's eastern border, for security reasons, should be
moved to the west. As Roosevelt had earlier explained to the ambassador from
the Polish government-in-exile in London, it was folly to expect the United
States and Britain "to declare war on Joe Stalin over a boundary
dispute." On the other hand, Roosevelt urged Stalin to be flexible, citing
his own need for the Polish vote in the 1944 presidential election and the
importance of establishing cooperation between the London Poles and the Lublin
government-in-exile situated in Moscow. Roosevelt had been willing to make a
major concession to Russia's security needs by accepting the Soviet definition
of Poland's new boundaries. But he also expected some consideration of his own
political dilemma and of the principles of the Atlantic Charter.
Such consideration
appeared to be forthcoming in the summer of 1944 when Stalin agreed to meet the
prime minister of the London-Polish government and "to mediate"
between the two opposing governments-in-exile. But hopes for such a compromise
were quickly crushed as Soviet troops failed to aid the Warsaw Polish
resistance when it rose in massive rebellion against German occupation forces
in hopes of linking up with advancing Soviet forces. The Warsaw Poles generally
supported the London government-in-exile. As Red Army troops moved to just six
miles outside of Warsaw, the Warsaw Poles rose en masse against their Nazi
oppressors. Yet when they did so, the Soviets callously rejected all pleas for
help. For eight weeks they even refused to permit American planes to land on
Soviet soil after airlifting supplies to the beleaguered Warsaw rebels. By the
time the rebellion ended, 250,000 people had become casualties, with the
backbone of the pro-London resistance movement brutally crushed. Although some
Americans, then and later, accepted Soviet claims that logistical problems had
prevented any assistance being offered, most Americans endorsed the more
cynical conclusion that Stalin had found a convenient way to annihilate a large
part of his Polish opposition and facilitate acquisition of a pro-Soviet
regime. As Ambassador Averell Harriman cabled at the time, Russian actions were
based on "ruthless political considerations."
By the time of the Yalta
conference, the Red Army occupied Poland, leaving Roosevelt little room to
maneuver. When one American diplomat urged the president to force Russia to
agree to Polish independence, Roosevelt responded: "Do you want me to go
to war with Russia?" With Stalin having already granted diplomatic
recognition to the Lublin regime, Roosevelt could only hope that the Soviets
would accept enough modification of the status quo to provide the appearance of
representative democracy. Spheres of influence were a reality, FDR told seven
senators, because "the occupying forces [have] the power in the areas
where their arms are present." All America could do was to use her
influence "to ameliorate the situation."
Nevertheless, Roosevelt
played what cards he had with skill. "Most Poles," he told Stalin,
"want to save face. ... It would make it easier for me at home if the
Soviet government could give something to Poland." A government of
national unity, Roosevelt declared, would facilitate public acceptance in the
United States of full American participation in postwar arrangements. "Our
people at home look with a critical eye on what they consider a disagreement
between us. ... They, in effect, say that if we cannot get a meeting of minds
now . . . how can we get an understanding on even more vital things in the future?"
Although Stalin's immediate response was to declare that Poland was "not
only a question of honor for Russia, but one of life and death," he
finally agreed that some reorganization of the Lublin regime could take place
to ensure broader representation of all Poles.
In the end, the Big Three
papered over their differences at Yalta by agreeing to a Declaration on
Liberated Europe that committed the Allies to help liberated peoples resolve
their problems through democratic means and advocated the holding of free
elections. Although Roosevelt's aide Admiral William Leahy told him that the
report on Poland was "so elastic that the Russians can stretch it all the
way from Yalta to Washington without ever technically breaking it,"
Roosevelt believed that he had done the best he could under the circumstances.
From the beginning, Roosevelt had recognized, on a de facto basis at least,
that Poland was part of Russia's sphere of influence and must remain so. He
could only hope that Stalin would now show equal recognition of the U.S. need
to have concessions that would give the appearance, at least, of implementing
the Atlantic Charter.
The
same basic dilemmas, of course, occurred with regard to the structure of
postwar governments in all of Eastern Europe. As early as 1943, Roosevelt had
made clear to Stalin at Tehran that he was willing to have the Baltic states
controlled by the Soviets. His only request, the president told Stalin, was for
some public commitment to future elections in order to satisfy his constituents
at home for whom "the big issues . . . would be the question of referendum
and the right of self-determination." The exchange with Stalin accurately
reflected Roosevelt's position over time.
Significantly,
Roosevelt even sanctioned Churchill's efforts to divide Europe into spheres of
influence. With Roosevelt's approval, Churchill journeyed to Moscow in the fall
of 1944. Sitting across the table from Stalin, Churchill proposed that Russia
exercise 90 percent predominance in Romania, 75 percent in Bulgaria, and 50
percent control, together with Britain, in Yugoslavia and Hungary, while the
United States and Great Britain would exercise 90 percent predominance in
Greece. After extended discussion and some hard bargaining, the deal was made.
(Poland was not even included in Churchill's percentages, suggesting that he
was acknowledging Soviet control there.) At the time, Churchill suggested that
the arrangements be expressed "in diplomatic terms [without use of] the
phrase 'dividing into spheres,' because the Americans might be shocked."
But in fact, as Robert Daliek has shown in his superb study of Roosevelt's
diplomacy, the American president accepted the arrangement. "I am most
pleased to know," FDR wrote Churchill, "you are reaching a meeting of
your two minds as to international policies." To Harriman he cabled:
"My active interest at the present time in the Balkan area is that such
steps as are practicable should be taken to insure against the Balkans getting
us into a future international war." At no time did Roosevelt protest the
British-Soviet agreement.
In the
case of Eastern Europe generally, even more so than in Poland, it seemed clear
that Roosevelt, on a de facto basis, was prepared to live with
spheres-of-influence diplomacy. Nevertheless, he remained constantly sensitive
to the political peril he faced at home on the issue. As Congressman John
Dingell stated in a public warning in August 1943, "We Americans are not
sacrificing, fighting, and dying to make permanent and more powerful the communistic
government of Russia and to make Joseph Stalin a dictator over the liberated
countries of Europe." Such sentiments were widespread. Indeed, it was
concern over such opinions that led Roosevelt to urge the Russians to be
sensitive to American political concerns. In Eastern Europe for the most part,
as in Poland, the key question was whether the United States could somehow find
a way to acknowledge spheres of influence, but within a context of universalist
principles, so that the American people would not feel that the Atlantic
Charter had been betrayed.
The future of Germany
represented a third critical point of conflict. For emotional as well as
political reasons, it was imperative that steps be taken to prevent Germany
from ever again waging war. In FDR's words, "We have got to be tough with
Germany, and I mean the German people not just the Nazis. We either have to
castrate the German people or you have got to treat them in such a manner so
they can't just go on reproducing people who want to continue the way they have
in the past." Consistent with that position, Roosevelt had agreed with
Stalin at Tehran on the need for destroying a strong Germany by dividing the
country into several sectors, "as small and weak as possible."
Within weeks, however,
the harsh policy of pastoralization came unglued. From a Soviet perspective,
there was the problem of how Russia could exact the reparations she needed from
a country with no industrial base. American policymakers, in turn, objected
that a Germany without industrial capacity would prove unable to support
herself, placing the entire burden for maintaining the populace on the Allies.
Rumors spread that the Morgenthau plan was stiffening German resistance on the
western front. American business interests, moreover, suggested the importance
of retaining German industry as a key to postwar commerce and trade.
As a result, Allied
policy toward Germany became a shambles. "No one wants to make Germany a
wholly agricultural nation again," Roosevelt insisted. "No one wants
'complete eradication of German industrial production capacity in the Ruhr and
the Saar.' " Confused about how to proceed, Roosevelt—in effect—adopted a
policy of no policy. "I dislike making detailed plans for a country which
we do not yet occupy," he said. When Churchill, Stalin, and Roosevelt met
for the last time in Yalta, this failure to plan prevented a decisive course of
action. The Russians insisted on German reparations of $20 billion, half of
which would go to the Soviet Union. Although FDR accepted Stalin's figure as a
basis for discussion, the British and Americans deferred any settlement of the
issue, fearing that they would be left with the sole responsibility for feeding
and housing the German people. The only agreement that could be reached was to
refer the issue to a new tripartite commission. Thus, at just the moment when
consensus on a policy to deal with their common enemy was most urgent, the
Allies found themselves empty handed, allowing conflict and misunderstanding
over another central question to join the already existing problems over
Eastern Europe.
Directly related to each
of these issues, particularly the German question, was the problem of postwar
economic reconstruction. The issue seemed particularly important to those
Americans concerned about the postwar economy in the United States. Almost
every business and political leader feared resumption of mass unemployment once
the war ended. Only the development of new markets, extensive trade, and worldwide
economic cooperation could prevent such an eventuality. "The capitalistic
system is essentially an international system," one official declared.
"If it cannot function internationally, it will break down
completely." The Atlantic Charter had taken such a viewpoint into account
when it declared that all states should enjoy access, on equal terms, to
"the raw materials of the world which are needed for their economic
prosperity."
To promote these
objectives, the United States took the initiative at Bretton Woods, New
Hampshire, in 1944 by creating a World Bank with a capitalization of $7.6
billion and the International Monetary Fund with a capitalization of $7.3
billion. The two organizations would provide funds for rebuilding Europe, as
well as for stabilizing world currency. Since the United States was the major
contributor, it would exercise decisive control over how the money was spent.
The premise underlying both organizations was that a stable world required
healthy economies based on free trade.
Attitudes toward economic
reconstruction had direct import for postwar policies toward Germany and
Eastern Europe. It would be difficult to have a stable European economy without
a significant industrial base in Germany. Pastoral countries of small farms rarely
possessed the wherewithal to become customers of large capitalist enterprises.
On the other hand, a prosperous German economy, coupled with access to markets
in Eastern and Western Europe, offered the prospect of avoiding a recurrence of
depression and guaranteed a significant American presence in European politics
as well. Beyond this, of course, it was thought that if democracy was to
survive, as it had not after 1918, countries needed a thriving economy.
Significantly,
economic aid also offered the opportunity either to enhance or diminish
America's ties to the Soviet Union. Averell Harriman, the American ambassador
to Moscow after October 1943, had engaged in extensive business dealings with
the Soviet Union during the 1920S and believed firmly in the policy of
providing American assistance to rebuild the Soviet economy. Such aid, Harriman
argued, "would be in the self-interest of the United States" because
it would help keep Americans at work producing goods needed by the Russians.
Just as important, it would provide "one of the most effective weapons to
avoid the development of a sphere of influence of the Soviet Union over eastern
Europe and the Balkans."
Proceeding
on these assumptions, Harriman urged the Russians to apply for American aid.
They did so, initially, in December 1943 with a request for a $1 billion loan
at an interest rate of one-half of 1 percent, then again in January 1945 with a
request for a $6 billion loan at an interest rate of 2.25 percent. Throughout
this period, American officials appeared to encourage the Soviet initiative.
Secretary of the Treasury Morgenthau had come up with his own plan for a $10
billion loan at 2 percent interest. When Chamber of Commerce head Eric Johnson
visited Moscow, Stalin told him: "I like to do business with American
businessmen. You fellows know what you want. Your word is good, and, best of
all, you stay in office a long time—just like we do over here." So
enthusiastic were some State Department officials about postwar economic
arrangements that they predicted exports of as much as $1 billion a year to
Russia. Molotov and Mikoyan encouraged such optimism, with the Soviets
promising "a voluminous and stable market such as no other customer would
ever [offer]."
As the
European war drew to a close, however, the American attitude shifted from one
of eager encouragement to skeptical detachment. Harriman and his aides in
Moscow perceived a toughening of the Soviet position on numerous issues,
including Poland and Eastern Europe. Hence, they urged the United States to
clamp down on lend-lease and exact specific concessions from the Russians in
return for any ongoing aid. Only if the Soviets "played the international
game with us in accordance with our standards," Harriman declared, should
the United States offer assistance. By April 1945, Harriman had moved to an
even more hard-line position. "We must clearly recognize," he said,
"that the Soviet program is the establishment of totalitarianism, ending
personal liberty and democracy." A week later he urged the State
Department to view the Soviet loan request with great suspicion. "Our
basic interest," he cabled, "might better be served by increasing our
trade with other parts of the world rather than giving preference to the Soviet
Union as a source of supply."
Congress
and the American people, meanwhile, seemed to be turning against postwar
economic aid. A public opinion poll in December 1944 showed that 70 percent of
the American people believed the Allies should repay their lend-lease debt in
full. Taking up the cry for fiscal restraint, Senator Arthur Vandenberg told a
friend: "We have a rich country, but it is not rich enough to permit us to
support the world." Fearful about postwar recession and the possibility
that American funds would be used for purposes it did not approve, Congress
placed severe constraints on continuation of any lend-lease support once the
war was over and indicated that any request for a postwar loan would encounter
profound skepticism.
Roosevelt's response, in
the face of such attitudes, was once again to procrastinate. Throughout the
entire war he had ardently espoused a generous and flexible lend-lease policy
toward the Soviet Union. For the most part, FDR appeared to endorse Secretary
Morgenthau's attitude that "to get the Russians to do something [we]
should ... do it nice. . . . Don't drive such a hard bargain that when you come
through it does not taste good." Consistent with that attitude, he had
rejected Harriman's advice to demand quid pro quos for American
lend-lease. Economic aid, he declared, did not "constitute a bargaining
weapon of any strength," particularly since curtailing lend-lease would
harm the United States as much as it would injure the Russians. Nevertheless,
Roosevelt accepted a policy of postponement on any discussion of postwar
economic arrangements. "I think it's very important," the president
declared, "that we hold back and don't give [Stalin] any promise until we
get what we want." Clearly, the amount of American aid to the Soviet Union—and
the attitude which accompanied that aid— could be decisive to the future of
American-Soviet relations. Yet in this—as in so many other issues—Roosevelt
gave little hint of the ultimate direction he would take, creating one more
dimension of uncertainty amidst the gathering confusion that surrounded postwar
international arrangements.
The final issue around
which the Cold War revolved was that of the atomic bomb. Development of nuclear
weapons not only placed in human hands the power to destroy all civilization,
but presented as well the critical question of how such weapons would be used,
who would control them, and what possibilities existed for harnessing the
incalculable energy of the atom for the purpose of international peace and
cooperation rather than destruction. No issue, ultimately, would be more
important for human survival. On the other hand, the very nature of having to
build the A-bomb in a world threatened by Hitler's madness mandated a secrecy
that seriously impeded, from the beginning, the prospects for cooperation and
international control.
The divisive potential of
the bomb became evident as soon as Albert Einstein disclosed to Roosevelt the
frightening information that physicists had the capacity to split the atom.
Knowing that German scientists were also pursuing the same quest, Roosevelt
immediately ordered a crash program of research and development on the bomb,
soon dubbed the "Manhattan Project." British scientists embarked on a
similar effort, collaborating with their American colleagues. The bomb, one
British official noted, "would be a terrific factor in the postwar world .
. . giving an absolute control to whatever country possessed the secret."
Although American advisors urged "restricted interchange" of atomic
energy information, Churchill demanded and got full cooperation. If the British
and the Americans worked together, however, what of the Soviet Union once it
became an ally?
In a decision fraught
with significance for the future, Roosevelt and Churchill agreed in Quebec in
August 1943 to a "full exchange of information" about the bomb with
"[neither] of us [to] communicate any information about [the bomb] to
third parties except by mutual consent." The decision ensured Britain's
future interests as a world power and guaranteed maximum secrecy; but it did so
in a manner that would almost inevitably provoke Russian suspicion about the
intentions of her two major allies.
The implications of the
decision were challenged just one month later when Neils Bohr, a nuclear
physicist who had escaped from Nazi-occupied Denmark, approached Roosevelt
(indirectly through Felix Frankfurter) with the proposal that the British and
Americans include Russia in their plans. Adopting a typically Rooseveltian
stance, the president both encouraged Bohr to believe that he was "most
eager to explore" the possibility of cooperation and almost simultaneously
reaffirmed his commitment to an exclusive British-American monopoly over
atomic information. Meeting personally with Bohr on August 26, 1944, Roosevelt
agreed that "contact with the Soviet Union should be tried along the lines
that [you have] suggested." Yet in the meantime, Roosevelt and Churchill
had signed a new agreement to control available supplies of uranium and had
authorized surveillance of Bohr "to insure that he is responsible for no
leakage of information, particularly to the Russians." Evidently,
Roosevelt hoped to keep open the possibility of cooperating with the
Soviets—assuming that Bohr would somehow communicate this to the Russians—while
retaining, until the moment was right, an exclusive relationship with Britain.
Implicit in Roosevelt's posture was the notion that sharing atomic information
might be a quid pro quo for future Soviet concessions. On the surface, such an
argument made sense. Yet it presumed that the two sides were operating on the
same set of assumptions and perceptions—clearly not a very safe presumption. In
this, as in so many other matters, Roosevelt appears to have wanted to retain
all options until the end. Indeed, a meeting to discuss the sharing of atomic
information was scheduled for the day FDR was to return from Warm Springs,
Georgia. The meeting never took place, leaving one more pivotal issue of
contention unresolved as the war drew to a close.
Conclusion.
Given
the nature of the personalities and the nations involved, it was perhaps not
surprising that, as the war drew to an end, virtually none of the critical
issues on the agenda of postwar relationships had been resolved. Preferring to
postpone decisions rather than to confront the full dimension of the conflicts
that existed, FDR evidently hoped that his own political genius, plus the
exigencies of postwar conditions, would pave the way for a mutual accommodation
that would somehow satisfy both America's commitment to a world of free trade
and democratic rule, and the Soviet Union's obsession with national security
and safely defined spheres of influence. The Russians, in turn, also appeared
content to wait, in the meantime working militarily to secure maximum leverage
for achieving their sphere-of-influence goals. What neither leader nor nation
realized, perhaps, was that in their delay and scheming they were adding fuel
to the fire of suspicion that clearly existed between them and possibly missing
the only opportunity that might occur to forge the basis for mutual
accommodation and coexistence.
For
nearly half a century, the country had functioned within a political world
shaped by the Cold War and controlled by a passionate anticommunism that used
the Kremlin as its primary foil. Not only did the Cold War define America's
stance in the world, dictating foreign policy choices from Southeast Asia to
Latin-America; it defined the contours of domestic politics as well. No group
could secure legitimacy for its political ideas if they were critical of
American foreign policy, sympathetic in any way to "socialism," or
vulnerable to being dismissed as "leftist" or as "soft on
communism." From national health insurance to day care centers for
children, domestic policies suffered from the crippling paralysis created by a
national fixation with the Soviet Union.
Now, it
seemed likely that the Cold War would no longer exist as the pivot around which
all American politics revolved. However much politicians were unaccustomed to talking
about anything without anti-communism as a reference point, it now seemed that
they would have to look afresh at problems long since put aside because they
could not be dealt with in a world controlled by Cold War alliances.
In some ways,
America seemed to face the greatest moment of possibility in all of postwar
history as the decade of the 1990s began.
So much positive change had already occurred in the years since World War
II—the material progress, the victories against discrimination, the new horizons
that had opened for education and creativity. But so much remained to be done
as well in a country where homelessness, poverty, and drug addiction reflected
the abiding strength that barriers of race, class, and gender retained in
blocking people's quest for a decent life.
Glossary:
Cold
War - is
the term used to describe the intense rivalry that developed after World War
II between groups of Communist and non-Communist nations/ On one side were the
Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) and its Communist allies, often
referred to as the Eastern bloc. On the other side were the United States and
its democratic allies, usually referred to as the Western bloc. The struggle
was called the Cold War because it did not actually lead to fighting, or
"hot" war, on a wide scale.
Iron
Curtain - was
the popular phrase, which Churchill made to refer to Soviet barriers against
the West. Behind these barriers, the USSR steadily expanded its power.
Marshall
Plan - encouraged
European nations to work together for economic recovery after World War II
(1939-1945) / In June 1947, the United States agreed to administer aid to
Europe in the countries would meet to decide what they needed/ The official
name of the plane was the European Recovery Program. It is called the Marshall
Plane because Secretary of the State George C. Marshall first suggested it.
Potsdam
Conference -was the
last meeting among the Leaders of Great Britain, the Soviet Union and the
United States, during World War II. The conference was held at Potsdam,
Germany, near Berlin. It opened in July 17, 1945, about two months after
Germany's defeat in the war. Present at the opening were U.S. President Harry
S. Truman, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and the Soviet Premier
Josef Stalin.
Yalta
Conference - was
one of the most important meetings of key Allied Leaders during World War II.
These Leaders were President Franklin D. Roosevelt of the United States, Prime
Minister Winston Churchill of Great Britain, and Premier Josef Stalin of the Soviet
Union. Their countries became known as the "Big Three". The
conference took place at Yalta, a famous Black Sea resort in the Crimea, from
Feb. 4 to 11, 1945. Through the years decisions made there regarding divisions
in Europe have stirred bitter debates.
The reference list.
1. William H. Chafe
"The Unfinished Journey: America
since World War II" New York Oxford, Oxford University press, 1991.
2. David Caute "The Great
Fear", 1978
3. Michael Belknap "Cold War
Political Justice", 1977
4. Allen D. Harper "The politics of
Loyalty", 1959
5. Robert Griffin "The politics of
Fear", 1970
6. James Wechler "The Age
Suspicion" 1980
7. Alistair Cooke "A Generation on
Trial", 1950
8. An outline of American History
9. World Book
10. Henry Borovik "Cold War",
1997