Sexing up the Cold War: New evidence on the Molotov-Truman talks of April 1945

Cold War History

Volumn 4, Issue 3, 2004, Pages 105-125

  Roberts, Geoffrey ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY COLLEGE CORK   (Ireland)

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EID: 34248048681     PISSN: 14682745     EISSN: 17437962     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/1468274042000231178     Document Type: Article

References (31)

1. The Tehran, Yalta and Potsdam Conferences: Documents (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1969), p.138.
2. Harry S. Truman, Year of Decisions 1945 (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1955), p.85.
3. John Lewis Gaddis, The United States and the Origins of the Cold War, 1941-1947 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1972), pp.204-5. To be fair to Gaddis, his treatment of this episode is more circumspect in his subsequent writings.
4. Terry H. Anderson, The United States, Great Britain and the Cold War, 1944-1947 (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1981), p.59.
5. Deborah Welch Larson, Origins of Containment: A Psychological Explanation (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1985) pp.152-7.
6. Daniel Yergin, Shattered Peace: The Origins of the Cold War and National Security State (London: Penguin, 1978), p.83.
7. Wilfried Loth, The Division of the World, 1941-1955 (London: Routledge, 1988), p.88.
8. Walter LaFeber, for example, quotes the 'angry exchange' in his main text but adds the following footnote: 'This precise exchange was possibly created by Truman's imagination. These words are not reported in the official records of the conversation. They doubtless suggest, nevertheless, the tone of what Truman did say'. (America, Russia and the ColdWar, 1945-1990, 6th edn. (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1991), p.17, n.21).
9. Foreign Relations of the United States 1945, vol.5: Europe (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1967), pp.237-41.
10. Ibid., pp.237-51. For the Soviet records of these discussions: Arkhiv Vneshnei Politiki Rossiiskoi Federatsii (hereafter AVP RF) F.06, Op.7b, Pap.60, D.1, LL.1-5; F.06, Op.7b, Pap.60, D.4, LL.1-11.
11. C.E. Bohlen, Witness to History, 1929-1969 (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1973), p.213.
12. W.A. Harriman and E. Abel, Special Envoy to Churchill and Stalin 1941-1946 (New York: Random House, 1975), pp.453-4.
13. Andre Gromyko, Memories (London: Hutchinson, 1989), pp.95-6.
14. Martin J. Sherwin, AWorld Destroyed: Hiroshima and the Origins of Arms Race, rev. edn. (New York: Vintage Books, 1987), pp.160-64. According to Sherwin, Stimson briefed Truman with the aim of steering him away from any confrontation with the Russians.
15. This was also a prominent theme of the 'revisionist' critique of American foreign policy and the origins of the ColdWar. For example, D.F. Fleming: 'There are some who think the Cold War did not begin until around 1947, but it is clear from this episode [the tough talk with Molotov - GR] that President Truman was ready to begin it before he had been in office two weeks. From the eminence of eleven days in power, Harry Truman made his decision to lay down the law to an ally which had contributed more in blood and agony to the common cause than we had'. (The Cold War and its Origins (London: Allen and Unwin, 1961), vol.1, p.268).
16. Stalin's Correspondence with Churchill, Attlee, Roosevelt and Truman, 1941-1945 (London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1958), vol.2, docs.289 and 293.
17. Diane S. Clemens, 'Averell Harriman, John Deane, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the "Reversal of Co-operation" with the Soviet Union in April 1945', International History Review 14/2 (May 1992). Clemens is suitably sceptical about the famous angry exchange and quotes (n.51, p.305)
18. William E. Pemberton's Harry S. Truman: Fast Dealer and Cold Warrior (Boston, 1989): 'Truman often described harsh verbal exchanges that in fact did not take place'.
19. Wilson D. Miscamble, 'Anthony Eden and the Truman-Molotov Conversations, April 1945', Diplomatic History 2/2 (Spring 1978). Miscamble points out that without Eden's initiative Truman's meeting with Molotov on 23 April would not even have taken place.
20. For example, Melvyn P. Leffler, A Preponderance of Power; National Security, the Truman Administration and the Cold War (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1992), pp.30ff.
21. Foreign Relations of the United States: The Conference of Berlin 1945, vol.1 (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1960), pp.21-62.
22. For evidence on Molotov and Stalin's assessment of Potsdam see the reports of the Yugoslav ambassador in Moscow cited by L. Ya. Gibianskii, 'Doneseniya Ugoslavskogo Posla v Moskve ob Otsenkakh Rukovodstvom SSSR Potsdamskoi Konferentsii I Polozheniya v Vostochnoi Evrope', Slavyanovedeniye 1 (1994).
23. On Soviet preparations for the CFM: AVP RF F.0431/1, op.1, D.1-4 and F.0431/1, Op.1, Pap.5, D.31-6. Also G.A. Agafonova, 'Diplomaticheskii Krizis na Londonskoi Sessii SMID', in I.V. Gaiduk and N.I. Egorova (eds.), Stalin i Kholodnaya Voina (Moscow, 1998).
24. The Tehran, Yalta and Potsdam Conferences (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1969), pp.325-7.
25. In his analysis of the discussions at Potsdam Marc Trachtenberg (A Constructed Peace: The Making of the European Settlement, 1945-1963 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1999), pp.15-33)
26. argues that Stalin came to accept thatSoviet reparations would only come from the Red Army's zone of military occupation in Germany. But that argument does not fit with persistent Soviet efforts to obtain their share of reparations from theWestern zones. Even more unconvincing is rachtenberg's argument that because Stalin had little faith in the prospects for a postwar political transformation of Germany Soviet support for postwar German unity was purely propagandistic. In fact, a united Germany under Soviet influence, if not communist control, was precisely Stalin's aim in 1945, although he later came to abandon it in favour of more realistic goals. The course of Soviet policy towards Germany from 1941 to 1948 may be followed in the three volumes of documents published in the series SSSR i Germanskii Vopros, ed. J. Laufer and G. Kunin (Moscow 1996, 2000 and 2003).
27. On Stalin's reaction to the atomic bomb: David Holloway, Stalin and the Bomb (Yale University Press, 1994), chapters 6 and 8.
28. One expression of this view was the discussions within the Soviet Information Bureau (Sovinformburo) about the changing conditions and tasks of Soviet propaganda after the war. In 1945 Solomon Lozovskii, the deputy head of Sovinform, penned a series of letters and reports highlighting the renewed ideological campaign against the USSR being waged in the Western press, including by Western governments. See Rossiiskii Gosudarstvennyi Arkhiv Sotsial'no-Politicheskoi Istorii (RGASPI), F.17, Op.125, D.315, 386, 387 and 388.
29. Documents on British Policy Overseas, series 1, vol.II (HMSO, 1985), pp.635-927.
30. J.F. Byrnes, Speaking Frankly (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1947), p.61.
31. As this article was going to press I came across this reference to the Truman - Molotor 'confrontation' in Carl Marzani'sWe Can Be Friends: Origins of the ColdWar (Topical Book Publishers: New York 1952): 'Washington gossip had it that Molotor had walked out on Truman. According to foreign correspondent Edgar A. Mowrer, Molotar had said, "No one has ever talked like this me befor".' (p.187) In this light it seems likely that what Truman remembered about this meeting with Molotor in his memories were the press reports and rumours of what had supposedly happened!