Cold War

Cold War

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

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