Yalta by S. M. Plokhy

Author:S. M. Plokhy
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2023-08-23T00:00:00+00:00

When Stalin walked into Roosevelt’s study at 3:30 on February 8 for a private talk on the Far East, accompanied by Molotov, Harriman, and two interpreters, he found the president in the middle of a conversation with Stettinius. The secretary of state, who had not been invited to the meeting, knew from his previous conversations that the Far East was the purview of the military and thus outside his domain. He left the room. The two leaders were about to embark on a complex diplomatic game. Roosevelt began from afar. He asked Stalin whether the U.S. Air Force could establish a base in the vicinity of Budapest and conduct bombing surveys in Eastern Europe. Only then did he turn to the Far East. Since Manila had been retaken from the Japanese, he noted, additional air bases were now required to intensify the bombing of Japan so that they might win the war without having to send in ground troops.

Stalin knew where the conversation was heading: Roosevelt wanted to talk about U.S. military bases in the Soviet Far East—a point he had raised in his unanswered letter of February 5. Stalin said he was not prepared to provide the U.S. Air Force with bases on Kamchatka, given the presence of the Japanese consul there. But he could allow two bases in the Amur River region, in close proximity to China. It was a promising beginning. For months the American military had been pressing for bases in the Soviet Far East, and now the issue seemed to be resolved. As always, the response had come from Stalin himself: no one below him would have dared to venture an opinion on such a sensitive matter as allowing foreign troops on Soviet territory.

Roosevelt pressed on. He handed Stalin a memo asking him to instruct his military to start joint planning of Far Eastern operations. Stalin said he would give orders to that effect. A breakthrough had been achieved. Roosevelt had reason to be satisfied: his whole military agenda had been accomplished in a few minutes. He had received a clear indication that the Soviet Union was entering the war with Japan. His second big task at Yalta was all but completed. There was only one unanswered question: what would Stalin want in return?

“All that is good,” the Soviet leader said now, “but what about the political conditions on which the Soviet Union is entering the war with Japan?” He had in mind the conditions he had discussed with Harriman in Moscow. Roosevelt said he “felt that there would be no difficulty whatsoever in regard to the southern part of Sakhalin and the Kurile Islands going to Russia at the end of the war.” This corresponded to the content of the letter that, according to Gromyko, had given Stalin such cause for elation. This time Stalin showed no sign of emotion.

To the rest of the issues raised with Harriman the response was more ambiguous. Roosevelt recalled their conversation in Teheran, when he had said that

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