The day Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin outlined a new world order and the hunted bear theory that the Soviet leader repeated

On February 11, 1945, eighty years ago, the “Big Three” toasted the agreements reached at the Yalta Conference, which went down in history as the “division of the world” by the three Allied leaders. There were three months left before Hitler committed suicide and the Second World War ended, when a new era began. Day zero of the “Cold War,” the best kept secret of the conclave and what remained to be resolved

By Alberto Amato

Afterwards, when everything was over, the world started again.

Then, when the echoes of the fervent toasts had died away, the hopeful illusion of a world at peace; when the alcohol of the Russian vodka, the British whiskey and the American bourbon had evaporated; when there was no trace left of the caviar brought from Moscow, nor of the Texas-style fried chicken generously served on the oak tables of the Imperial Palace of Livadia, tables that had been sent by the Metropol Hotel in Moscow, because the Livadia had been sacked by the Nazis; then, when the Yalta Conference finally ended, on February 11, 1945, eighty years ago, after a week of bitter fighting between the “Big Three” – the President of the United States, Franklin D. Roosevelt, the British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and the leader of the USSR, Joseph Stalin – The world breathed a sigh of relief and began to enter into what it thought was a new era.. It was, but in its own way. And it was a way unknown until then, which would be baptized as "Cold War", which It was neither war nor cold, which would keep that hopeful world in suspense for decades. Even today it bounces between Moscow, the White House, Ukraine and German rearmament, when it is judged dead and buried.

In Yalta, on the Crimean peninsula, an ideal summer resort, bathed by the Black Sea, where the former tsars used to spend their long imperial summers, Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin outlined a new world order which was going to have the United States and the Soviet Union as protagonists, from which the previously powerful British Empire was going to be somewhat marginalized and in decline: a correct presentiment by Churchill who was already thinking of a confrontation between the two emerging blocks in the imminent post-war period.

In order for the new world order to play its cards, the old world still had to be finished off: Nazism had to be finished off. But in February 1945, the Yalta Conference began on Sunday 4th, the Nazis were already defeated: the Red Army was fighting only seventy kilometres from Berlin and There were barely three months left until Hitler's suicide and the end of the war.. The position on the battlefield gave Stalin a certain advantage over Roosevelt and Churchill at the negotiating table. The Red Army also already occupied a large part of Eastern Europe. The agreements reached at Yalta went down in history as “a division of the world"among the three allies. It is true that it was a world in ruins, but it was a division at last.

The Yalta agreements, signed after long and at times violent discussions, established the basics: the demilitarization of Germany and its division into four occupation zones under the command of the USSR, the United States, Great Britain and France, included at Churchill's request, although the leader of the French provisional government, Charles De Gaulle, was excluded from Yalta. Germany should pay the costs of the war estimated at twenty billion dollars, later reduced to ten billion because, according to Yalta, the victors could not make the same mistake as the Treaty of Versailles in 1919, which had subjected Germany to an unpayable debt, and also because Churchill and Roosevelt insisted that defeated Germany must keep its economy and industry alive in the difficult recovery period that would follow the war.

Yalta also established that An international court would try Nazi war criminals. This would lead to the creation of the United Nations with a Security Council made up of the victorious powers, the United States, Great Britain, the USSR, France and also China. At Stalin's request, the socialist republics of Ukraine and Byelorussia were admitted as full members of the organisation.

The Allies approved a “Declaration of Liberated Europe” in which they committed themselves to the reconstruction of that devastated continent; it would be carried out by democratically elected governments, with the participation of all political sectors of each nation, except the fascist sectors. This implied: free elections, secret and universal voting and respect for the popular will. Stalin never fulfilled that part of the agreement. In a secret pact, the three Allies established that the USSR would declare war on Japan within three months of the German surrender. In exchange, Stalin would occupy the Kuril Islands and the territories that Russia had lost in the Russo-Japanese War of 1905.

Stalin had been a little reluctant to go to war with Japan. But it was a pose. The Allies complained because the Soviet dictator had fought, throughout the war, for the opening of a second front in Europe, which would imply the participation of the United States on the continent. And now, when his allies asked him to open a new front against Japan, he was squeamish. He ended up accepting because for the USSR it was a predictable victory and for Stalin an expected revenge.

Yalta's big concern was Poland. Above all, it was Churchill's great concern. Long-suffering Poland had been carved up between Germany and the USSR when the two nations signed a non-aggression pact in August 1939, a week before the outbreak of World War II. But the Nazis broke the pact in June 1941: they invaded the USSR and laid waste to Poland. Now, The country was once again “divided” at YaltaPoland would be “pushed” westwards; it would annex the territories that had been Soviet, and the so-called “Lublin Committee”, which was run by a provisional government and comprised only communists, would call for free elections that would allow the participation of the Polish government in exile, installed in London. That never happened either. There was oil at stakePoland lost its eastern territories to the USSR, and was compensated, but not rewarded, with the territories that had German populations and that Hitler had claimed as his own, such as the Lebus region, the western part of Pomerania, East Prussia, Silesia and the city of Danzig. But the entire nation remained under the rule of the Soviet Union.

Stalin violated most of the Yalta agreements. Despite his promises, his passionate and emotional speeches and the praise he showered on his British and American allies, he never allowed free elections in Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria. Instead he established communist governments in all of those nations, suppressed non-communist parties and organizations and never endorsed the existence of democratic institutions. He imposed himself by force, terror and repression. Churchill would say in 1946, in the United States and before President Harry Truman: “An iron curtain has fallen over the continent.” It was an iron curtain frozen by the Cold War.

After the formality of the agreements, some curiosities, which also make history, speak of the atmosphere of that historic meeting. Yalta began on Sunday the 4th, but on Friday the 2nd Roosevelt and Churchill had met in La Valletta, the capital of the island of Malta. Roosevelt had arrived on the island on board the heavy destroyer “USS Quincy”, to try to agree with Churchill on what they were going to say to Stalin. They did not agree, especially on the plan of General Dwight Eisenhower, supreme commander of the Allied forces in Europe, to take his troops to the other side of the Rhine in their advance towards Germany.

Churchill and Roosevelt dined together that evening on the USS Quincy, but despite the cordiality and good food, British Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden noted in his diary: “It was impossible even to begin discussion of business. (…) We are going to a decisive conference and so far None of us have agreed on what we are going to discuss, or how we are going to handle issues with a Bear. (by Stalin), who certainly knows what he has in mind.” Stalin did, by the way, know what he had in mind.

Churchill and Roosevelt flew to Yalta in a specially converted C-54 Skymaster. It was Roosevelt's second long trip in a plane that had been dubbed "The Sacred Cow" and was actually the predecessor of "Air Force One" that serves guests at the White House. Twenty-five more planes, twenty Skymasters and five Avro Yorks, took the two to the Crimean Peninsula. The more than seven hundred people who accompanied the two Western leadersAll aircraft had to follow a longer route than usual to reach their destination, because they had to avoid flying over the Greek island of Crete, which was still in German hands.

Roosevelt and Churchill were received in Crimea by the Soviet Chancellor, Viascheslav Molotov, the same one who had signed the non-aggression pact with the Nazis, the American ambassador in Moscow, Averell Harriman, and the Secretary of State, Edward Stettinius Jr. Roosevelt, who was paralyzed, was accommodated in the Livadia Palace, the one where the deliberations were held; Churchill went to the Vorontzov Palace and Stalin, perhaps in a symbolic gesture, chose to sleep in the Yusupov Palace, a surname that brought back reminiscences of the Tsars: in 1916, the young Prince Felix Yusupov had murdered the Tsar's black monk, Grigori Rasputin, and had gone into exile in that palace after his crime.

The morning before the first plenary session, as the Yalta deliberations were called, Roosevelt met first with his military chiefs and State Department officials, including Alger Hiss, who would later be charged with, and convicted of, espionage for the USSR. It was the diplomats, including a spy, and the military chiefs who decided Roosevelt's agenda for the day: the priorities were the future of Poland, the creation of the United Nations, the division of Germany and its reconstruction, and the improvement of relations between the ruling party in China and the rising Communist Party, which in 1949 would come to power under Mao Tse Tung.

Stalin, who had arrived in Crimea by train, first visited Churchill and assured him that Germany was about to be defeated: Hitler had dismissed several of his most capable generals. It was a friendly chat, Churchill later recalled, in which the two talked about the war with Germany. The British man wanted to know what the Soviets would do if Hitler decided to flee south, perhaps to Dresden. Stalin replied curtly: “We would follow him.” Later, together with Molotov, Stalin visited Roosevelt and told him that he was furious at the degree of destruction the Nazis had left in Crimea. Roosevelt replied with a quip that was perhaps intended to be friendly: “I hope,” he said, “that you will again propose a toast to the execution of fifty thousand German army officers.” He was referring to a toast Stalin had made at the end of the Tehran conference in 1943, which had first caused Churchill to immediately leave the meeting and then Stalin to clarify: it had all been a joke.

The American president and the Soviet leader spoke about The great absentee from Yalta, General Charles De Gaulle, whom Stalin described as an “unrealistic” person because he insisted on demanding equal rights for France with the United States, the USSR and Great Britain. Stalin believed that France had done little in the war. Roosevelt was also not very fond of de Gaulle, who was not a person capable of exuding sympathy, and who had had violent encounters with Churchill in London during the war, while he was head of the French government in exile.

The intense Yalta plenary sessions of the “Big Three” oscillated between sympathy and confrontation. The first, at 4pm on XNUMX February, was “cooperative”, as British Foreign Secretary Eden noted in his diary. Ten Soviets, ten Americans and eight Britons sat around the conference table. The cordiality continued after the session ended at XNUMXpm and intensified over dinner, which included Russian caviar and Texas-style fried chicken. Churchill and Roosevelt told Stalin that behind his back they called him “Uncle Joe” and Stalin got a little angry. Churchill would later recall that the Soviet leader asked: “When can I leave the table?” The stumbling block was saved by Roosevelt’s close associate James Byrnes, who told Stalin: “After all, you always talk about ‘Uncle Sam’. Why do you think Uncle Joe is so bad?” According to Churchill: “The marshal was reassured by these words, and Molotov later assured me that he had understood the joke. He already knew that many people abroad called him 'Uncle Joe' and he understood that the term had been given to him with friendly intent and as an expression of affection.” The world, which was a powder keg, was divided over these suspicions that were on the surface..

However, that afternoon, somewhere between pleasant and sharp, Roosevelt had made a statement that surprised Churchill and filled him with fear. He had stated that the United States would do what was necessary to preserve world peace, but not at the cost of maintaining an army in Europe, four thousand kilometers from his country: the American occupation would then last two years. Churchill thought that, if the United States withdrew, England would have to occupy the entire western zone of Germany, now divided, a mission that was beyond the British capabilities.

The next day Churchill raised the need for France to ease the task at hand and asked to grant his unbearable ally De Gaulle an occupation zone, which was by no means the solution to the drama, although it would help somewhat: the French were the ones who could liquidate the German bases in France from where the German V1 and V2 flying bombs had left for London. The United States did not withdraw from Europe in the two years following the end of the war. Despite the slightly cordial atmosphere of that session, the British chancellor saw it differently. He described it as “terrible” and judged Stalin’s view of the small European nations as “sinister.” Anthony Eden’s mood did not improve when Churchill told him that he was going to accept Stalin’s proposal to give Ukraine and Belarus the right to vote in the imminent United Nations.

The best kept secret of Yalta had little to do with the war, the ambitions of the powers, the fierce discussions, the division of Germany, the war with Japan and the tension and sympathy, feigned or not, of the protagonists. The best kept secret was Roosevelt's health. The American president was dying.In fact, he died of a cerebral hemorrhage two months after Yalta, on April 12, 1945, in Warm Springs, shortly before the end of the war he had helped win.

The Yalta photos show Roosevelt looking like a sick old manHe was sixty-two years old, suffered from poliomyelitis, hypertensive heart disease and some neuronal deficiency. In the autumn of 1944, he had carried out a hard electoral campaign to obtain his fourth term in the White House: the effort, especially a long six-hour tour in the rain through the state of New York, had damaged him. He arrived in Crimea looking as he had seen him days before the Under Secretary of State, Dean Acheson, who noted in his diary: “We are all worried about the appearance of the President. Thin, with a haggard face, eyes framed in a violet circle, only the elegant cigarette holder and the carefree air with which he smoothed out difficulties recalled the Franklin D. Roosevelt of the first period.”

Roosevelt was re-elected for a third term in November 1944. In February 1945, at Yalta, one of the first to notice his deteriorating health was the British Eden: he even noticed that he was confused and somewhat imprecise in his assessments during the first evening with Churchill. Also present at that meeting was the personal physician of the British Prime Minister, Charles McMoran Wilson, known as Lord Moran. He too took a clinical look at Roosevelt and came to a dramatic conclusion: “He was a man close to death".

Instead, Roosevelt’s aides at Yalta, Averell Harriman, Admiral William Leahy, and Secretary of State Edward Stettinius Jr., thought the president was skillfully and effectively defending U.S. interests. There were minor red flags. After a violent coughing fit the night after one of the first plenary sessions, the president’s personal physician Howard Bruenn found no lung ailments; Roosevelt’s heart and blood pressure were unchanged. On February 8, after a heated argument with Stalin about Poland, Roosevelt developed a case of high blood pressure that made Bruenn fearful. The doctor recommended moderating the president’s activity and crazy schedule at Yalta and modified part of the president’s diet: within two days, all traces of illness had disappeared. Even Eden changed his mind. The British foreign minister admitted that he had been wrong about Roosevelt’s health and that “he was not a good man, but a bad man.”Despite his paleness and weight loss, he negotiates with singular vision".

On Saturday, February 10, with the ink still fresh at the foot of the Yalta agreements, Churchill presided over the farewell dinner. It was not for many diners, less than a dozen including the interpreters. Stalin, Churchill and Roosevelt had exchanged on Thursday 8 some excessive praise that would not be repeated. Now, all gathered for the last time in the Vorontzov Palace, Churchill raised his glass to say: “I have made this toast on several occasions. This time I am going to do it with greater affection than on previous occasions, not because the marshal is now a victorious leader, but because the great victories and the glory of Russian arms have made him more flexible than he had to show himself in the hard times we have had to go through (…) We believe that in him we have a friend in whom we can trust, and I hope that he continues to believe the same of us. I hope that he lives to see his beloved Russia not only glorious in war, but also happy in peace.”

Stalin replied, but there is no trace of his words. Churchill does not record them in his Memoirs. He did recall in them that, in an informal conversation with Stalin, he mentioned that the elections in Britain were approaching. Stalin predicted his victory (he was wrong, Churchill was defeated) with steely logic: “Who is more suitable than the man who won a war?” Churchill told him that there were two parties in the United Kingdom and that he belonged to only one. And Stalin replied: “One party is much better.”.

The next day, the Big Three had lunch in the Tsar's former billiard room at the Livadia Palace. Afterwards, they signed the last documents and Churchill mused, silently and sarcastically: "As is usual at these meetings, Serious issues remained unresolved. Poland was the serious matter that had not been resolved. Roosevelt said he was anxious to return to the United States, after stopping in Egypt: he looked tired and his sickly appearance had not changed much. The three of them said goodbye in this way, like three students on vacation at sea who must return home. Molotov accompanied Roosevelt on his return trip to the neighboring city of Saky, and even boarded the presidential plane to say goodbye to the president. Churchill spent the night in Sevastopol, aboard the British liner Franconia, to fly to England the next day. By then Stalin was already on the train, on his way to Moscow.

Of all the various interpretations that Yalta and its agreements have had and still have today, there is one very revealing one that Stalin was fed up with telling in the form of a story. The Soviet leader recounted a hunting party in which he participated with Roosevelt and Stalin. His allies finally managed to kill a bear. Churchill says: “I will keep its skin. Let Roosevelt and Stalin divide the meat.” Roosevelt objects: “No, I will keep the skin and let Churchill and Stalin divide the meat.” Until both ask Stalin what he would do: “The bear belongs to me: after all, I killed it.".

The bear was Hitler; the bear skin, Eastern Europe.

That's how the world kept going.

Source: INFOBAE