Some Reflections on Soviet-American Relations

As World War II drew to a close, the leaders of the anti-Hitler coalition—Roosevelt, Stalin, and Churchill—assembled at Yalta to ponder the future. Already, sharp clashes at the conference table over the future fate of Poland and Eastern Europe cast a sombre spell over the proceedings. But the necessities of the alliance still served to suppress differences and to emphasize a search for consensus. At a tripartite dinner meeting on 8 February 1945, President Roosevelt, ever hopeful, described the relations of the Soviet Union, Great Britain, and the United States “as that of a family” and spoke of a future in which their common objectives would be “to give to every man, woman, and child on this earth the possibility of security and well-being.” Marshal Stalin, perhaps more realistic, “remarked that it was not so difficult to keep unity in time of war since there was a joint aim to defeat the common enemy which was clear to everyone. … the difficult task came after the war when diverse interests tended to divide the allies.” Nevertheless, he expressed himself as “confident that the present alliance would meet this test also and that it was our duty to see that it would, and that our relations in peacetime should be as strong as they had been in war.” Prime Minister Churchill somewhat grandiloquently spoke of “standing on the crest of a hill with the glories of future possibilities stretching before us.