Potsdam: The End of World War II and the Remaking of Europe by Michael Neiberg

Author:Michael Neiberg
Language: dan
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Basic Books
Published: 2015-05-04T16:00:00+00:00

Joseph Stalin and President Harry Truman pose with their senior diplomats at the Potsdam Conference. US Secretary of State James Byrnes and Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov (far right) stand arm in arm. (United States Army Heritage and Education Center, Charles H. Donnelly Collection)

Throughout the conference, Molotov spoke in harsh ideological terms, defending the ideals of the Bolshevik revolution and railing against the perfidy of the West. Harriman had warned Truman that Molotov remained “far more suspicious of us and less willing to view matters in our mutual relations from a broad standpoint than is Stalin.” The tense meeting in Washington could only have exacerbated Molotov’s prickliness and suspicion about the Americans. “Stone Ass,” not the tyrant for whom he worked, provided the West with its toughest negotiating partner.19

At several points during the Potsdam meeting, Molotov went a step or two too far for Stalin’s liking, leading Stalin to calm his foreign minister down with a few words of Russian spoken softly into his ear. Although Molotov certainly had a reputation for bombast and directness, the act was likely part of a plan to make Stalin appear as the good Russian, yielding on points where Molotov had stood firm. When Stalin did not want to discuss a point any longer, he would ask that the Council of Foreign Ministers, which the great powers created at Potsdam, consider it further. The council intended to bring together the senior diplomats of the great powers on a regular basis, but Stalin knew that Molotov could use council deliberations to delay or even kill any issue he did not want to discuss himself.20

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