Transcript Behind the Closed Doors

Behind the Closed Doors
The Conferences
• During World War II, Allied leaders had many ways to stay in
contact.
• They could cable or telephone, send written communications, and
dispatch ambassadors and other representatives to conferences–
but there was nothing like meeting in person to ensure that a point
was adequately stressed, to forge a friendship, or to understand
how to best manipulate the other man.
• Great Britain’s prime minister, Winston Churchill, knew this well;
an intrepid traveler, he took long and often dangerous journeys to
all thirteen of the major conferences.
• U.S. president Franklin D. Roosevelt’s struggle with polio made
long-distance travel difficult, while the Soviet Union’s supreme
leader, Joseph Stalin, involved in a brutal fight against Nazi
Germany and obsessed with politics in Moscow, was even less
willing to travel. When he did, he refused to stray far from home.
• Over time, a tenuous bond formed between the Allied
leaders, since each needed help from the others.
• The Soviet Union was desperate for the Western Allies to
open a second front in Europe, the fate of Great Britain
depended on the USSR’s ability to occupy the Nazis on the
eastern front, and the United States wanted allies in its war
against Japan.
• A declaration released on December 1, 1943, after the
three men met for the first time in Teheran, proclaimed:
“We leave here, friends in fact, in spirit and in purpose.”
But even as they offered mutual assistance and relied on
one another, their goals for the postwar world were vastly
different, compromises were inevitable, and the Allied
leaders remained suspicious about the others’ intentions.
Atlantic (codename Riveria
• August 9 – 12, 1941
• Location
Placentia Bay, off the
Newfoundland coast,
Canada, aboard two ships:
the USS Augusta and the
HMS Prince of Wales
Participants
Winston Churchill, Franklin
D. Roosevelt
• Objectives: Churchill: to draw the United States into World War II (a
goal that went unrealized) and to secure more help for the weary
British, who had been at war since 1939; Roosevelt: to cement
relations with Churchill, discuss terms for Lend-Lease assistance,
and strengthen domestic support for ties to Great Britain.
• Outcome: At this, their first meeting, Churchill and Roosevelt began
to forge a partnership. Roosevelt agreed to provide more LendLease aid and to protect British shipping between Canada and
Iceland.
• The two leaders issued a joint warning to Japan about that
country’s aggression and sent a note to Stalin suggesting the three
meet to discuss “our common effort.” They also issued the Atlantic
Charter, which expressed a commitment to the principles of selfgovernance and freedom for every country, called for the
“destruction of the Nazi tyranny,” and looked forward to free
trade, cooperation, and peace among all nations.
• Washington, D.C., 19411942 (codename Arcadia)
• December 22, 1941 –
January 14, 1942
• Location
Washington, D.C.
Participants
Winston Churchill, Franklin
D. Roosevelt
• Objectives: Churchill/Roosevelt: to discuss the Allied
defense strategy; Churchill: to ensure that Great Britain
continue to receive American aid in Europe despite the
attack on Pearl Harbor.
• Outcome: The Declaration of the United Nations was
created, establishing an Allied alliance to oppose the Axis
nations; it was signed by 26 countries on January 1, 1942.
Churchill and Roosevelt also began organizing a
coordinated Allied war effort, created the combined chiefs
of staff, and agreed that a supreme commander would
oversee each theater of war. They resolved that the Allies
would focus first on defeating Germany and formulated
plans to invade North Africa.
• Moscow, 1942
• August 12 – 17, 1942
• Location
Moscow, Soviet Union
Participants
Winston Churchill,
Joseph Stalin
• Objectives: Churchill: to forge a bond with Stalin
and reassure him that the Western Allies
supported the Soviet Union and would eventually
open a second European front; Stalin: to receive a
commitment that the Allies would open a second
front in Europe–soon.
• Outcome: In this, their first meeting, Churchill
could not promise Stalin a second front, but he
explained how the Western Allies’ military
strategy would aid the Soviet Union by bombing
Germany and invading North Africa.
• Casablanca (codename
Symbol)
• January 14 – 23, 1943
• Location
Casablanca, Morocco
Participants
Winston Churchill,
Franklin D. Roosevelt
(Stalin was invited but
did not attend)
• Objectives: Churchill: to promote an invasion of Sicily during
discussions about future military maneuvers; Roosevelt: to advance
a policy requiring the Axis to surrender unconditionally; he had also
hoped to meet with Stalin.
• Outcome: The Allies planned a combined bombing offensive against
Germany, agreed to invade Sicily, and began preliminary discussions
that would eventually result in Operation Overlord,or the invasion
of Normandy (D-Day) in 1944. Two leaders of French resistance
forces, Charles de Gaulle and Henri Giraud, also attended and were
encouraged to cooperate with each other. At a joint press
conference after the meeting Roosevelt announced that the Allies
would pursue a policy of unconditional surrender against
the Axis nations, calling for “the destruction of the philosophies in
those countries which are based on conquest and the subjugation
of other people.”
• Washington, D.C., 1943
(codename Trident)
• May 11 – 25, 1943
• Location
Washington, D.C.
Participants
Winston Churchill, Franklin
D. Roosevelt
• Objectives: Churchill: to ensure that the Americans remained
focused on the European war even as they struggled against Japan
in the Pacific, and to push for an Allied offensive in Italy after the
attack on Sicily; Roosevelt: to plan the cross-Channel invasion of
France.
• Outcome: They discussed operations against Japan and the ongoing
Battle of the Atlantic and debated which strategy to pursue in
Europe. In the end, they agreed on an Italian offensive, with the
caveat that it could not jeopardize the plans for the cross-Channel
attack. They decided to delay the cross-Channel invasion of France
until May 1, 1944, but decided that Mediterranean divisions would
be transferred to England for cross-Channel training starting in
November 1943. They also agreed to pursue a policy
ofunconditional surrender against Italy.
• Quebec, 1943
(codename Quadrant)
• August 17 – 24, 1943
• Location
Quebec, Canada
Participants
Winston Churchill,
Franklin D. Roosevelt
• Objectives: Churchill/Roosevelt: to discuss global strategy;
Churchill: to press for further action in the Mediterranean;
Roosevelt: to solidify plans for Operation Overlord the crossChannel attack on France planned for May 1944.
• Outcome: Plans for Operation Overlord progressed and were given
priority over operations in the Mediterranean. They formed a
new theater of war command in Southeast Asia and authorized
offensives to further aid the Chinese war effort. The Allies also
decided to pressure Spain, which was providing the Nazis with raw
materials and manpower, to stop supporting Germany. Churchill
and Roosevelt signed the secret Quebec Agreement about the
development of the atomic bomb. In it they pledged not to use
nuclear weapons against one another and not toemploy nuclear
weapons against another country or share information about the
weapons with another country, without mutual consent.
• Cairo (codename Sextant)
• November 23 – 26,
December 3 – 7, 1943
• Location
Cairo, Egypt
Participants
Winston Churchill,
Franklin D. Roosevelt,
Chiang Kai-shek (China),
Ismet Inönü (Turkey)
•
•
Objectives: Churchill: to ensure that Operation Overlord preparations would not
adversely affect the Mediterranean offensive, to bring neutral Turkey into the war
on the Allied side; Roosevelt: to meet with the Chinese.
Outcome: The leaders planned operations in the Southeast Asia theater of war .
Chiang, Churchill, and Roosevelt issued the Cairo Declaration on December 1,
1943, stating, “The Three Great Allies are fighting this war to restrain and punish
the aggression of Japan.” They resolved that postwar Japan would be stripped of
possessions acquired after 1914, agreed that China would regain lost territory,
committed themselves to a free Korea, and vowed that “Japan will also be expelled
from all other territories which she has taken by violence and greed.” Stalin had
chosen not to attend the Cairo conference because the Soviet Union was not at
war with Japan, so Churchill and Roosevelt interrupted the meeting and traveled
to Teheran, Persia (Iran) to meet with Stalin. After returning from Teheran, they
tried unsuccessfully to convince Inönü to join the Allies in the war and selected
U.S. General Dwight D. Eisenhower as the supreme commander for Operation
Overlord, the invasion of Normandy.
• Teheran (codename
Eureka)
• November 28 –
December 1, 1943
• Location
Teheran, Persia (Iran)
Participants
Winston Churchill,
Franklin D. Roosevelt,
Joseph Stalin
•
•
Objectives: Churchill: to argue the necessity of the Mediterranean offensive;
Roosevelt: to meet with Stalin in person and build a cooperative relationship, to
gain Soviet support for the primacy of the Normandy invasion over Mediterranean
operations, and to get Stalin to promise to fight Japan; Stalin: to discuss opening a
second Allied front in France (Operation Overlord) and to gain more postwar
territory.
Outcome: At last the “Big Three” met face-to-face for the first time. They settled
on the timing of Operation Overlord and Stalin committed to launch an eastern
front offensive against Germany that coincided with the attack. Stalin pledged to
assist in the war against Japan after Germany was defeated and expressed his wish
that, after the war, the 1941 USSR borders with Finland and Poland be restored.
The leaders discussed the fate of Poland and the possibility of ceding a portion of
eastern Germany to Poland to compensate for the Polish territory that the USSR
would claim. They touched on how to handle a postwar Germany, and Churchill
and Roosevelt promised to try to get Turkey to join the Allies . In the Declaration of
the Three Powers released on December 1, 1943, Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin
wrote “we are sure that our concord will win an enduring Peace.”
• Quebec, 1944
(codename Octagon)
• September 12 – 16,
1944
• Location
Quebec, Canada
Participants
Winston Churchill,
Franklin D. Roosevelt
• Objectives: Churchill: to ensure that Great Britain received
extended U.S. Lend-Lease supplies and to propose dividing
Germany into zones of occupation; Roosevelt: to discuss the plan
on the deindustrializationof Germany created by Secretary of the
Treasury Henry Morgenthau.
• Outcome: They determined Allied military strategy in Europe and
the Pacific. Churchill committed a British fleet to help the U.S. in the
Pacific war and received the assurance of continued Lend-Lease aid
while Japan remained undefeated. The men agreed that Germany
would be divided into occupation zones after the war. Despite
Churchill’s reservations, they alsoapproved the Morgenthau plan to
obliterate German industry and give German machinery to Allied
nations; the plan was later abandoned.
• Moscow, 1944
(codename Tolstoy)
• October 9 – 19, 1944
• Location
Moscow, Soviet Union
Participants
Winston Churchill,
Joseph Stalin
•
•
Objectives: Churchill: to ensure the Soviet Union would enter the Pacific War, to
divide Eastern Europe into zones of responsibility and to propose that Stalin meet
with leaders of the Polishgovernment-in-exile to reach an agreement about
Poland’s post-war borders; Stalin: to expand the Soviet Union’s sphere of
influence.
Outcome: The U.S. sent Ambassador Averell Harriman to this conference as an
observer, and U.S. General John Deane was also present at times. Stalin was
briefed on the overall Allied strategy, and he agreed that the Soviet Union could
enter the war against Japan about three months after Germany’s defeat. The men
discussed post-war spheres of influence in eastern Europe, informally deciding
that the Soviet Union would have more prominence in Romania and Bulgaria,
Great Britain would have more in Greece, and Yugoslavia and Hungary would be
split in half (later talks altered this agreement further in the USSR’s favor). Stalin
also agreed to invite the head of the Polish government-in-exile, Stanislaw
Mikolajczyk, to Moscow to discuss the future of Poland. Churchill supported
Stalin’s proposal to annex a portion of eastern Poland while awarding Poland a
part of eastern Germany–a suggestion Mikolajczyk did not agree to. The Polish
situation was left unresolved.
•
•
•
Malta (codename Argonaut, phase 1
Cricket)
January 30 – February 3, 1945
Location
Malta
•
Participants
Winston Churchill, Franklin D.
Roosevelt
•
Objectives: The Western
Allies wanted to review and hone
their combined military strategy in
Europe as the war with Germany
began drawing to a close, and to
discuss strategy in the Far East.
Outcome: Just before the meeting of
the “Big Three” in Yalta, U.S.
secretary of state Edward Stettinius
and British foreign secretary Anthony
Eden met to discuss their combined
military strategy. Churchill and
Roosevelt met with one another only
twice at Malta. As the strategic plan
for Europe was being developed, the
British made concessions, agreeing to
transfer some Allied divisions in the
Mediterranean to the western front
to fight Germany.
 starter activity

In July 1945, Truman met with Stalin and Churchill at Potsdam. Think of suitable
thought bubbles for Stalin & Truman – i.e. what were they hoping to achieve at
the end of the War.  Think of a US /USSR caption for this photograph.
• Objectives: Churchill: to approve France as one of
the occupying powers in Europe and to promote
democracy in Europe (a goal of Roosevelt’s as
well); Roosevelt: to settle unresolved issues
related to the United Nations with Stalin and to
ensure that the USSR would enter the war against
Japan; Stalin: to guarantee that the Soviet Union
had a wide sphere of influence in Eastern
Europe, to gain more territory for his country, and
to collect reparations from Germany after the
war’s end.
• Outcome: The leaders coordinated the Western Allies’ European strategy
with the Soviet Union’s activities on the eastern front, but most of this
conference was devoted to postwar issues rather than military strategy.
They created the Allied Control Commission to oversee the postwar
division of Germany and confirmed that Germany and Berlin would be
divided into four zones of occupation overseen by France, Great Britain,
the Soviet Union, and the United States. Poland’s postwar borders were a
point of contention, but they agreed to give part of Poland to the USSR
after Stalin promised that free elections would be held soon in Poland. The
three men signed the Declaration on Liberated Europe affirming the right
of all people to “to create democratic institutions of their own choice” and
pledged to assist in “the earliest possible establishment through free
elections of Governments responsive to the will of the people.”
Roosevelt’s concern over the war with Japan prompted him to sign a
secret agreement with Stalin that would give the USSR Japanese territory
and economic rights in Manchuria in exchange for a Soviet declaration of
war against Japan. Churchill was not informed of this agreement.
• Potsdam (codename
Terminal)
• July 17 – August 2, 1945
• Location
Potsdam, Germany
Participants
Winston
Churchill/Clement
Attlee, Joseph Stalin,
Harry S. Truman
Potsdam, July-August 1945
• Objectives: Churchill/Attlee: to guarantee free
elections in Poland; Stalin: to promote the
USSR’s puppet government in Poland and to
achieve a favorable western Polish border;
Truman: to involve the Soviet Union in the
Pacific War and to insist on Japan’s
“unconditional surrender ”.
•
Outcome: After winning the war in Europe, a different set of Allied leaders met in Germany. U.S.
president Franklin D. Roosevelt had died on April 12, 1945, so the United States was represented by
the new president, Harry S. Truman. Also, during this conference, elections in Great Britain made
Clement Attlee the new British prime minister, so he replaced Churchill at the talks.
The leaders discussed postwar Europe and created the Council of Foreign Ministers to further
resolve European border issues and negotiate peace treaties. They discussed the fate of defeated
Germany and scheduled the first war crimes trial. Poland’s western boundary was determined, and
the Western Allies reluctantly gave the Soviet-controlled Polish government more power, while
Stalin again promised that free elections would be held there soon. The Allies considered the
surrender terms for Japan and on July 26, Great Britain, the United States, and China issued the
Potsdam Declaration . The document limited Japan’s sovereignty to four islands, called for Japanese
disarmament, insisted on the prosecution of Japanese war criminals, mandated that the country
promote democratic principles, and required the nation to be occupied until these terms were met.
Calling for Japan’s “unconditional surrender,” the Allies warned that the alternative was Japan’s
“prompt and utter destruction.” With British consent, Truman advised Stalin about the United
States’ success in testing “a new weapon of unusual destructive force.” Stalin promised to enter the
Pacific War in August.
 Your task
• Read Phillips, p.23-4 and
• Give examples of growing tensions between the
Grand Alliance members at these conferences
• List any evidence of areas of agreement
Yalta
Potsdam
Growing tensions – Yalta, Feb 1945
• Terms of the Atlantic Charter upheld liberal
democratic (not Communist) principles
• Character clashes: ‘…I don’t decry algebra, but
I prefer arithmatic’
• Poland: Communist govt in Lublin v. Polish
govt in exile; free elections?
• Death of Roosevelt
Growing tensions – Potsdam, July-Aug
1945
• Personalities: Truman used ‘language of a
Missouri mule driver’; Churchill ousted by
Attlee
• Poland: boundary changes, Poles deported,
Oder-Niesse new W frontier
• Eastern European govt: Communist takeovers
• Atomic bomb: Manhattan kept secret from
Stalin
 Extension
• Study the extracts your teacher provides and
note down in different colours evidence that
the West and evidence the USSR were to
blame for rising tensions at the wartime
conferences
After Yalta and Potsdam was the glass of international relations half full or half empty?
One side of the class must make a case that the conferences achieved very little and
indeed raised tensions, the other side must argue that they made significant advances
given the potential for disagreement.
 Extension task
• Produce a case study on the Soviet foreign
minister, Vyacheslav Molotov
 Plenary
• List areas of agreement and tension at the
Yalta & Potsdam conferences
• On balance do you think they played a major
role in increasing Cold War tensions?
 Homework
• Complete your reading of the extracts
• Note note down evidence of growing tensions
between the West and USSR.