July 17, 1945—Meeting for the first time, Joseph Stalin and Harry S. Truman, along with British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, began deliberating in Potsdam, a suburb of a Berlin too shelled by war to provide decent deliberations, on what they hoped would be the endgame of World War II.
Instead, the roots of distrust, already planted earlier in the year at the Yalta Conference, continued to grow at the Potsdam Conference, as the new American President and the longtime Soviet dictator came to inaccurate conclusions about each other.
Already, divisions were springing up between East and West over Soviet control of territories in Eastern Europe. At Yalta, the United States and Great Britain had clung to a thin reed of hope that the Soviet Union would conduct free elections in Poland. That hope turned out to be an illusion.
Truman’s approach to governing differed in many ways from that of his predecessor, Franklin Roosevelt, but it’s instructive to see how wrong both were about the Soviet leader. Both notions rested, in a sense, on confidence in their own judgment. FDR believed that there was virtually nobody immune from his immense charm, even a Soviet dictator credibly believed to be second only to Hitler in the mass-murder department (by some counts, perhaps even worse). Truman, on the other hand, thought Stalin could be brought to his senses by applying good, old-fashioned Midwestern plain speaking.
Truman was working in his study at noon on the 17th when he looked up to see Stalin in the doorway. After the two engaged in social chit-chat and posed for pictures in the garden, the President confided to his diary, “I can deal with Stalin. He is honest, but smart as hell.”
You read that statement—“I can deal with Stalin”—and it sounds like a foreshadowing of Margaret Thatcher’s advice to Ronald Reagan’s about new Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev: “We can do business with him.” I am not an admirer of Thatcher or Reagan, but they turned out to be correct about Gorbachev. Truman and FDR--not to mention Lord Mountbatten, who thought that telling this Marxist revolutionary about his connections to the Romanovs would result in an invitation to visit Russia--were wrong about Stalin.
Truman’s perception of the Soviet leader appeared to be something on the order of Tom Pendergast, the Kansas City city boss who had helped boost the President’s career. In that political environment, if you wanted something done, you took it to the political machine.
What neither FDR nor Truman could perceive, until it was too late, was that Stalin was not just an authoritarian but a paranoid mass murderer.
For his part, Stalin couldn’t help comparing Truman unfavorably with FDR, believing that the former failed haberdasher couldn't match the patrician, upstate New York aristocrat. ("They couldn't be compared. Truman's neither educated nor clever.") He had no idea that Truman would summon his nerve and face up to the U.S.S.R. over the next few years.
Instead, the roots of distrust, already planted earlier in the year at the Yalta Conference, continued to grow at the Potsdam Conference, as the new American President and the longtime Soviet dictator came to inaccurate conclusions about each other.
Already, divisions were springing up between East and West over Soviet control of territories in Eastern Europe. At Yalta, the United States and Great Britain had clung to a thin reed of hope that the Soviet Union would conduct free elections in Poland. That hope turned out to be an illusion.
Truman’s approach to governing differed in many ways from that of his predecessor, Franklin Roosevelt, but it’s instructive to see how wrong both were about the Soviet leader. Both notions rested, in a sense, on confidence in their own judgment. FDR believed that there was virtually nobody immune from his immense charm, even a Soviet dictator credibly believed to be second only to Hitler in the mass-murder department (by some counts, perhaps even worse). Truman, on the other hand, thought Stalin could be brought to his senses by applying good, old-fashioned Midwestern plain speaking.
Truman was working in his study at noon on the 17th when he looked up to see Stalin in the doorway. After the two engaged in social chit-chat and posed for pictures in the garden, the President confided to his diary, “I can deal with Stalin. He is honest, but smart as hell.”
You read that statement—“I can deal with Stalin”—and it sounds like a foreshadowing of Margaret Thatcher’s advice to Ronald Reagan’s about new Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev: “We can do business with him.” I am not an admirer of Thatcher or Reagan, but they turned out to be correct about Gorbachev. Truman and FDR--not to mention Lord Mountbatten, who thought that telling this Marxist revolutionary about his connections to the Romanovs would result in an invitation to visit Russia--were wrong about Stalin.
Truman’s perception of the Soviet leader appeared to be something on the order of Tom Pendergast, the Kansas City city boss who had helped boost the President’s career. In that political environment, if you wanted something done, you took it to the political machine.
What neither FDR nor Truman could perceive, until it was too late, was that Stalin was not just an authoritarian but a paranoid mass murderer.
For his part, Stalin couldn’t help comparing Truman unfavorably with FDR, believing that the former failed haberdasher couldn't match the patrician, upstate New York aristocrat. ("They couldn't be compared. Truman's neither educated nor clever.") He had no idea that Truman would summon his nerve and face up to the U.S.S.R. over the next few years.
Truman might have thought he could “deal with Stalin,” but was also determined, even at this point, to get tough with him. The West’s ability to sway matters in Eastern Europe was, at this point, limited (Stalin wouldn’t budge on Poland, but agreed to join with the U.S., Britain and France in administering occupation zones in Germany).
With Germany defeated, only Japan remained to be subdued. Enormous casualties at Okinawa had convinced the U.S. and Britain that Soviet participation was absolutely vital for the upcoming invasion of Japan.
But news of the successful testing of an atomic bomb at Los Alamos, N.M., the day before Truman met Stalin changed, much of the calculus of negotiations at Potsdam. After receiving notification of the test, Truman approached Stalin on July 24 without an interpreter present and told him the Americans had a “new weapon of unusual destructive force.” Stalin replied imperturbably that he hoped it would be used against Japan.
Once again, Truman made a mistake in gauging the Soviet leader’s psychology, but for a different reason. Stalin wasn’t impressed by the news because he knew about it already. Spies had not only alerted him to the existence of the Manhattan Project since March 1942, but put him onto the momentous "Trinity" secret the week before Truman hinted at it. The Soviets were already trying to duplicate all this research on their own (though it would take more atomic spying before the Soviets would have their hands on the bomb).
Revisionist history since the 1960s has fostered the notion that Truman ordered the dropping of the atomic bomb more to impress the Soviets with Western strength than as a means of saving the lives of American servicemen. His belief that he could “deal with Stalin”—that forceful determination would make the Soviets live up to their agreements—lent credence to this notion.
But the seismic shock of American casualties in 1945, even as Japan continued to suffer grievously, seems to have been more decisive, as well as the continued intransigence of the Japanese imperial government.
The Potsdam Declaration on July 26, calling for unconditional surrender, was rejected by Japan. At that point, pressure grew inexorably for the tragic decision to drop the bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
With Germany defeated, only Japan remained to be subdued. Enormous casualties at Okinawa had convinced the U.S. and Britain that Soviet participation was absolutely vital for the upcoming invasion of Japan.
But news of the successful testing of an atomic bomb at Los Alamos, N.M., the day before Truman met Stalin changed, much of the calculus of negotiations at Potsdam. After receiving notification of the test, Truman approached Stalin on July 24 without an interpreter present and told him the Americans had a “new weapon of unusual destructive force.” Stalin replied imperturbably that he hoped it would be used against Japan.
Once again, Truman made a mistake in gauging the Soviet leader’s psychology, but for a different reason. Stalin wasn’t impressed by the news because he knew about it already. Spies had not only alerted him to the existence of the Manhattan Project since March 1942, but put him onto the momentous "Trinity" secret the week before Truman hinted at it. The Soviets were already trying to duplicate all this research on their own (though it would take more atomic spying before the Soviets would have their hands on the bomb).
Revisionist history since the 1960s has fostered the notion that Truman ordered the dropping of the atomic bomb more to impress the Soviets with Western strength than as a means of saving the lives of American servicemen. His belief that he could “deal with Stalin”—that forceful determination would make the Soviets live up to their agreements—lent credence to this notion.
But the seismic shock of American casualties in 1945, even as Japan continued to suffer grievously, seems to have been more decisive, as well as the continued intransigence of the Japanese imperial government.
The Potsdam Declaration on July 26, calling for unconditional surrender, was rejected by Japan. At that point, pressure grew inexorably for the tragic decision to drop the bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
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