Cold War

Cold War

Ministry of education, science and culture

High College of English

Graduation Paper

on theme:

U.S. - Soviet relations.

Student: Pavlunina I.V.

Supervisor: Kolpakov A. V.

Bishkek 2000

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.

Such suffering provided the backdrop for a bitter controversy over

whether the United States and Britain were doing enough to assume their own

just share of the fight. Roosevelt understood that Russia's battle was

America's. "The Russian armies are killing more Axis personnel and

destroying more Axis materiel," he wrote General Douglas MacArthur in 1942,

"than all the other twenty-five United Nations put together." As soon as

the Germans invaded Russia, the president ordered that lend-lease material

be made immediately available to the Soviet Union, instructing his personal

aide to get $22 million worth of supplies on their way by July 25—one month

after the German invasion. Roosevelt knew that, unless the Soviets were

helped quickly, they would be forced out of the war, leaving the United

States in an untenable position. "If [only] the Russians could hold the

Germans until October 1," the president said. At a Cabinet meeting early in

August, Roosevelt declared himself "sick and tired of hearing . . . what

was on order"; he wanted to hear only "what was on the water." Roosevelt's

commitment to lend-lease reflected his deep conviction that aid to the

Soviets was both the most effective way of combating German aggression and

the strongest means of building a basis of trust with Stalin in order to

facilitate postwar cooperation. "I do not want to be in the same position

as the English," Roosevelt told his Secretary of the Treasury in 1942. "The

English promised the Russians two divisions. They failed. They promised

them to help in the Caucasus. They failed. Every promise the English have

made to the Russians, they have fallen down on. . . . The only reason we

stand so well ... is that up to date we have kept our promises." Over and

over again Roosevelt intervened directly and personally to expedite the

shipment of supplies. "Please get out the list and please, with my full

authority, use a heavy hand," he told one assistant. "Act as a burr under

the saddle and get things moving!"

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,

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