The Cold War & Its Origins, 1917–1960. Vol.I, 1917–1950

In the summer of 1946 the iron curtain had not closed down. At least it was possible for a young Mid-Western American to go to Russia and travel as he pleased. John Strohm, President of the American Agricultural Editors Association, decided that the common people in America ought to know about the plain farmers of Russia. He would go and report. He travelled through Europe several months, asking the Soviet consul in each capital if his visa had come yet, and eventually he sent a telegram to Stalin which opened all doors. He went to Russia, laid out his own itinerary, travelled for two months, talking with whom he pleased, took more than 600 pages of notes and shot 1200 pictures with his four cameras. The only request made of him was the observation of the Soviet Minister of Agriculture: “Naturally, we hope you will just tell the truth.”¹

Strohm found a severe shortage of consumer goods, but was convinced that the government was working hard to alleviate it. The people, too, had great hope for the future. In all the homes he visited, the ikons were still displayed and in the cities churches were filled. All agreed that the priests must stick strictly to religion. On the issue of freedom of religion the Baptist pastor in Moscow was emphatic in his praise of the present government over that of the Tsars.

Everywhere he went Strohm found the warmest feeling for all things American, hearty appreciation for our lend-lease equipment, general understanding about the American origin of UNRRA goods, and genuine personal friendliness. What puzzled everyone was the talk of war between the United States and Russia. “We love the American people—why should they want to make war on us?” he heard “many times from sincere, hard-working” people. When he replied that the American people wanted only peace they asked: “Then why do we read in our newspapers that American military men are saying war is inevitable and the sooner it comes the better—for America?” A soldier begged him to “tell the American people that we don’t want to go to war with them” and a Red Army captain embraced him with tears in his eyes, saying, “Please tell Americans that we must be friends.” Strohm found the Russian people “confused at the references they read in their papers that America is talking about war, war against the Soviet Union. To them such a war is unthinkable.”²

On August 11, 1946, five distinguished members of the American Committee for Russian War Relief returned from a 5,000 mile uncensored tour of Russia during which two members of the group, Dr. Louis D. Newton of Atlanta, Georgia, President of the Southern Baptist Convention, and Dr. Ralph W. Sockman, pastor of Christ Church, Methodist, New York City, preached in three Russian cities. Both agreed that they had found complete religious freedom in Russia and “a tremendous religious revival.” Mrs. La Fell Dickinson, President of the General Confederation of Women’s Clubs, another member of the party, attended an Orthodox church service which had an overflow outside and observed that the collection plates had to be emptied several times. She was profoundly impressed by the cordiality of the Russian people. She was surprised by the unusual number of bookshops, news stands and posted newspapers in the cities and by the way the people followed the Paris Peace Conference. She found the position of women in Russia “basically right.”

The group moved about as freely as in the United States and took hundreds of pictures, both still and moving. Dr. Newton reported that the Russian people talked only of peace. “They don’t want war and they are not talking war,” he said, adding that they were the greatest hosts he ever had in his life.³

Freedom of the Press. In 1946 the Russian and American peoples wanted only to live in peace with each other, but their leaders could not agree upon the terms. They could not agree even about freedom of the press. Marquis W. Childs noted that at times our news stories about the Paris Peace Conference read “like the accounts of a big-time prize fight. Round by round we hear first that the American champion is on top, then the Russian.”⁴ Many newspapers spoke sharply enough about Russia’s position and tactics. The New York Herald Tribune, August 12, 1946, agreed that “certainly, some Western newspapers have been recklessly and inexcusably provocative,” but thought there were many antidotes available for the mischief they do, though “none for the much more serious war-mongering which the Soviet press and radio produce daily, in the bland conviction that they are simply printing the revealed ‘truth’.” Yet the Soviet bureaucracy was as genuinely concerned and alarmed “about Western press freedom as any Westerner could be over Soviet suppression.”⁵ Molotov was certain his own press was “sturdier and freer” and he was “indubitably sincere on this point, as on many others.”⁶

Russia’s Purposes. On the other hand, Russian reactions puzzled some of the best American newspaper men. Paul Scott Mowrer noted that the Russians “seem really to believe that they are threatened by a hostile combination.” He believed that the Russians had changed their propaganda line in the Fall of 1944, and it seemed to him “that Russia’s idea is to do as it pleases inside its own occupation areas, while holding a veto over anything anyone wants to do elsewhere.” Writing from Rome, Edgar Ansel Mowrer stated bluntly that “there are around Rome and elsewhere some Americans who seem to want war with Russia. There are many more who say they think war with Russia is inevitable.” He drew a distinction between “those who oppose Soviet aggression, hoping to avoid war, and those who are already licking their chops at the thought of atomizing Russia before the Russians can wield atomics.”⁷

Most observers forgot the effects of the two world wars, the intervention of 1919, twenty years of ostracism and the appeasement period on the mentality of the Soviet leaders. Others did remember. Sumner Welles thought that no conflict was “conceivable unless Russia’s fears of the ‘capitalistic West’ had already reached a psychopathic stage.” Unfortunately fear in one country bred fear in another. The fears and suspicions generated in the two countries during the preceding twelve months had “already reached fantastic proportions.” He himself believed the underlying objectives of Soviet policy to be: “safety, reconstruction, the industrialization of the Soviet republics, and the development of natural resources as essential parts of a program designed to raise rapidly Russian living standards.”⁸

In the same vein, C. L. Sulzberger, writing from Paris, felt that “One must always proceed on the assumption that both the United States and Russia are working here to obtain a fair settlement,” and another leading correspondent of the New York Times, James B. Reston, added the penetrating comment that the struggle between them was being waged by the two countries which had had the least experience in international relations. He concurred in the judgment that neither side wanted war and reported “a growing feeling” in Washington that President Truman had not done all he could to talk out with Premier Stalin the fundamental questions. Among these, as listed by Executive officials, were demands that the Soviets control the Comintern, halt the war of nerves, stop trying (a) to establish a Big-Five dictatorship in UN; (b) to infiltrate Iran; and (c) to establish a closed Soviet economic zone in East Europe.⁹

Strong American Diplomacy at the Dardanelles. On August 21, the United States delivered a note to Russia which barred the Russian proposal to Turkey for a share in the defense of the Straits. The note rejected The Russian proposal that the Montreux Convention should be revised to turn the control of the Straits over to the Black Sea powers. Only a revision that would relate the control of the Straits to UN would be acceptable, since an attack or threatened attack on the Straits by an aggressor would necessarily concern that body. The American note “led to the inference” that Russian insistence on its proposal would make Turkey a satellite, be a calculated move to dominate the whole Middle East and lead to the gravest threat yet presented to peace. This view was stressed by a “high official” who said: “We do not intend to be shrilly belligerent. We do intend to be absolutely and unshakably firm. We are not bargaining. We are not bluffing. We have taken an attitude and intend to stick to it. We want to make that crystal-clear to everybody.”¹⁰

This attitude was pointedly emphasized by sending the giant American aircraft carrier, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and other fleet units, to the Eastern Mediterranean. On September 9, our planes spelled out F.D.R. over the Greek port of Piraeus, partly as a gesture of support to the Greek government in its fight against communist rebels.¹¹

War Brewing. From Tokyo Darrell Berrigan, the Far Eastern Editor of the New York Post, reported on August 29, the flight of B-29s over Japan and South Korea. The American militarists who were there to democratize Japan gave him the impression they were really there to prepare for “inevitable” war with Russia. It was hard to tell whether they were motivated by a real fear or by the desire to get away from dull desk routine. In any event, Russia had become a bigger bugaboo than the Zaibatsu they were sent to eliminate. The vicious spiral was already working. We flooded “the Orient with ill-concealed, spies on secret missions to watch for Russian infiltration.” The Russians moved troops around North Korea. Each side considered its moves strictly defensive. There was “a war growing out of peace today” and there was “no basis for it but fear and distrust.”

On September 3 the editor of the New York Herald Tribune was also of the opinion that the very grim prospect was for a hardening of the world division, with the new balance see-sawing uneasily “toward another colossal war when another generation grows up to fight it.”

Byrnes’ Policy Challenged By Wallace. This foreboding was shared by one member of President Truman’s Cabinet Secretary of Commerce Henry A. Wallace. September 12, he made a speech before two left wing organizations in Madison Square Garden in which he said: “The tougher we get, the tougher the Russians will get. To prevent war and insure our survival in a stable world, it is essential that we look abroad through our own American eyes and not through the eyes of either the British Foreign Office or a pro-British or anti-Russian press.”

Wallace did not advocate appeasement. He declared that

“we most earnestly want peace with Russia, but we want to be met half way. We want cooperation. And I believe we can get cooperation once Russia understands that our primary objective is neither saving the British Empire nor purchasing oil in the Near East with the lives of American soldiers. We must not allow national oil rivalries to force us into war.

“The real peace treaty we now need is between the United States and Russia. On our part, we should recognize that we have no more business in the political affairs of Eastern Europe than Russia has in the political affairs of Latin America, Western Europe and the United States.”

At the same meeting Senator Claude Pepper of Florida, said:

“If we go on, as we are now going, appeasing the imperialists in the Republican party, there can be no end but war.

“The American people want us to give Britain her due but they also want us to give Russia her due. They know that we and the British have no right to tell Russia that she can’t defend the Dardanelles, for the Dardanelles are a lot closer to the homeland of Russia than the Suez is to Britain or the Panama Canal is to the United States.”

The Pepper speech could be ignored, but that by Wallace couldn’t, since he was a member of the Cabinet and since the President said at his press conference on September 12 that he approved the speech Wallace was going to make that night and there was nothing in it which conflicted with the address of Secretary of State James F. Byrnes at Stuttgart, Germany, on September 6. Byrnes had stated emphatically that we were not withdrawing our armed forces from Germany for a long period. He urged a federated Germany and opposed “any controls that would subject the Ruhr and the Rhineland to the political domination or manipulation of outside powers.”¹²

Most of the press quickly disagreed with the President and dispatches from Paris reported that the Wallace speech “had cut the ground from under the foreign policy that Mr. Byrnes had labored for a year to develop and define.” The New York Times asserted that Eastern Europe was our business when Hitler invaded it. Wallace was talking like Nye and Wheeler. He was leading us toward two worlds. His resignation was demanded by Representative Clarence J. Brown, of Ohio, campaign director of the Republican National Committee. Paris dispatches also expected Truman to support Byrnes and ask Wallace to resign.¹³

On the 16th Wallace announced, after telephoning to the President, that he stood upon his statement and would make a new speech. On the 17th he made public a long letter about our relations with the Soviet Union which he had sent to the President on July 23, at the latter’s suggestion.

Wallace’s Letter to the President. In this letter Wallace was “troubled by the apparently growing feeling among the American people that another war is coming and the only way we can head it off is to arm ourselves to the teeth.” He asked:

“How do American actions since V-J Day appear to other nations? I mean by actions the concrete things like $13,000,000,000 for the War and Navy Departments, the Bikini tests of the atomic bomb and continued production of bombs, the plan to arm Latin America with our weapons, production of B-29’s and planned production of B-36’s and the effort to secure air bases spread over half the globe from which the other half of the globe can be bombed. I cannot but feel that these actions must make it look to the rest of the world as if we were only paying lip service to peace at the conference table.

“These facts rather make it appear either (1) that we are preparing ourselves to win the war which we regard as inevitable or (2) that we are trying to build up a predominance of force to intimidate the rest of mankind. How would it look to us if Russia had the atomic bomb and we did not, if Russia had 10,000 mile bombers and air bases within 1,000 miles of our coastlines, and we did not?”

Armed peace would not work, said Wallace, because “the very fact that several nations have atomic bombs will inevitably result in a neurotic, fear ridden, itching trigger psychology in all the peoples of the world, and because of our wealth and vulnerability we would be among the most seriously affected.”

Attacking the central idea of our plan for the control of atomic energy, Wallace declared that the plan to proceed by stages was a fatal defect. We were “telling the Russians that if they are ‘good boys’ we may eventually turn over our knowledge of atomic energy to them and to the other nations. But there is no objective standard of what will qualify them as being good nor any specified time for sharing our knowledge.” It was perfectly clear that the step by step plan in any such one-sided form was not workable. The entire agreement would have to be worked out and “wrapped up in a single package.” We were in effect asking Russia to reveal the only two cards she had, our lack of information on her atomic energy progress and of her uranium resources. After we saw her cards we would decide whether we wanted to continue to play.

No wonder the Russians were not enthusiastic, Wallace said. They had put up their counter proposals for the record, but their real efforts were going into work on the bomb. Only deadlock could result from a continuation of our policy. He characterized the veto issue as completely irrelevant. It had no meaning with respect to a treaty on atomic energy. What action was there to be vetoed after the treaty was signed? He warned that the Russians would redouble their efforts to make A-bombs and that “they may also decide to expand their security zone in a serious way. Up to now what they have done in East Europe and the Middle East is small change, from the point of view of military power, as compared with our air bases in Greenland, Okinawa and many other places thousands of miles from our shores.”

“Our actions to expand our military security system—such steps as extending the Monroe Doctrine to include the arming of the Western Hemisphere nations, our present monopoly of the atomic bomb, our interest in outlying bases and our general support of the British Empire appear to them as going far beyond the requirements of defense.

“I think we might feel the same if the United States were the only capitalistic country in the world, and the principal socialistic countries were creating a level of armed strength far exceeding anything in their previous history. . . . Finally, our resistance to her attempts to obtain warm water ports and her own security system in the form of ‘friendly’ neighboring states seems, from the Russian point of view, to clinch the case.

“Most of us are firmly convinced of the rightness of internationalization and de-fortification of the Danube or the Dardanelles but we would be horrified and angered by any Russian counter proposal that would involve also the internationalizing and disarming of Suez or Panama.

“We should make an effort to counteract the irrational fear of Russia which is being systematically built up in the American people by certain individuals and publications. The slogan that communism and capitalism, regimentation and democracy, cannot continue to exist in the same world is, from a historical point of view, pure propaganda. . . . This country was for the first half of its national life a democratic island in a world dominated by absolutist governments.

“We should not act as if we, too, felt that we were threatened in today’s world. We are by far the most powerful nation in the world, the only Allied nation which came out of the war without devastation and much stronger than before the war. Any talk on our part about the need for strengthening our defenses further is bound to appear hypocritical.”

Wallace urged friendly discussion with Russia of her long term economic problems. He proposed the sending of a trade mission to Moscow to consider the future trade between the two countries and a reconstruction loan to Russia. It would, he concluded, be fruitless to seek solutions for the many specific problems that face us without first achieving an atmosphere of mutual trust and confidence. That would not be easy, but it could be done.

Byrnes’ Resignation Offered. The next day Secretary Byrnes sent a message to the President saying that “if it is not completely clear in your own mind that Mr. Wallace should be asked to refrain from criticizing the foreign policy of the United States while he is a member of your Cabinet, I must ask you to accept my resignation immediately.”¹⁴

On the same day the President had a long conference with Wallace at the White House, after which it was announced that Wallace would not make any more speeches until after the Paris Conference had ended. He would keep his post in the Cabinet. This led to another message from Byrnes insisting that Wallace must not criticize our foreign policy as a Cabinet member after the Conference adjourned.¹⁵ Editorially, the New York Times insisted that there could not be two officials of the same Cabinet advocating contradictory foreign policies. The Times stressed “the essential indivisibility of the modern world,” and demanded “why should it be necessary to beat this retreat from the idealism of the Atlantic Charter?” Byrnes was merely trying to draw a line somewhere.

Wallace Dismissed. On the 20th the President became convinced that he must choose. He asked for Wallace’s resignation and declared his complete support for Byrnes. In a radio talk the same evening Wallace maintained that he had begun talking about one world more than fifteen years ago and that we could not have peace except in one world. He wished to make clear again that he was against all types of imperialism and aggression, whether they were of Russian, British or American origin.

In commenting upon the crisis, James Reston said that it was generally agreed that “Mr. Wallace does not go out of the Cabinet as a discredited dissenter but as the victim of his own sincere beliefs and of a series of errors, most of which he did not commit. He wrote his letter of dissent at the President’s request, brought it into the open with the President’s permission, and did everything to meet the President’s wishes except insincerity. His beliefs were not popular but they were not the main reason for his resignation either.”¹⁶

Stalin’s Replies to Werth. On September 24, 1946, Stalin took a hand in the arguments stirred up by the Wallace episode. In reply to a questionnaire submitted by Alexander Werth, correspondent of the London Sunday Times, Stalin replied that real danger of a new war did not exist at that time. He did “not think that the ruling circles of Great Britain and the United States could create a ‘capitalist encirclement’ of the Soviet Union even if they so desire, which, however, I cannot assert.” He believed the “utilization of Germany by the Soviet Union against Western Europe and the United States of America to be precluded” by Russia’s treaties of mutual assistance against German aggression with Great Britain and France, by the decisions of the Potsdam Conference and by the “fundamental interests” of the Soviet Union.

Asked whether he believed that virtual monopoly by the U.S.A. of the atomic bomb constituted one of the main threats to peace, he answered that he did not believe the bomb to be as serious a force as certain politicians were inclined to regard it. Atomic bombs were intended for intimidating weak nerves but they could not decide the outcome of a war. Besides, monopolistic possession of the atomic bomb could not last long and its use would be prohibited. In reply to the question as to whether he believed in the possibility of friendly and lasting cooperation between the Soviet Union and the Western democracies he said, “I absolutely believe so,” and asserted “I do not doubt that the possibilities of peaceful cooperation, far from decreasing may even grow. Communism in one country is perfectly possible, especially in a country like the Soviet Union.”

With special reference to Great Britain, Stalin thought that “the strengthening of political, trade and cultural ties between these countries would considerably contribute to the establishment of such relations.”

Commenting editorially, on the 25th, the Herald Tribune thought that Stalin had cut the ground from under the encirclement thesis, which Russian propaganda had been featuring for six months, and concluded that the Kremlin might be groping after a real basis for peace. In London The Times said that Stalin’s statement was “a timely and much needed recall to sanity and moderation in international relations.”¹⁷

British Support for Wallace. The socialist British weekly New Statesman and Nation and the liberal Economist both endorsed the views of Henry A. Wallace. The former printed in full Wallace’s letter to Truman and estimated that nine out of ten Britons would agree wholeheartedly with it. Foreign Secretary Bevin agreed that war was not likely at present, but added that no peace was possible without an end to the present war of nerves.¹⁸ For the Conservatives Anthony Eden appealed for a “new approach to Soviet Russia,” but American Acting Secretary of State Clayton “summarily rejected” Eden’s suggestion for a new approach. The United States was satisfied with the course which she was pursuing toward the Soviets.

Commenting on Clayton’s reaction, William L. Shirer noted that the doubters of Stalin’s words were “the very people who take most seriously every word that he utters that seems bellicose and threatening.” Shirer thought that even the President must know that the foundations for peace between the U.S. and Russia which President Roosevelt built with such care and skill had been destroyed in the last twelve months.¹⁹

Replying to the two British weeklies the Herald Tribune maintained that Russia’s reaches for Trieste and the Dardanelles, together with her violent refusal to reopen international traffic on the Danube posed “a bald question of whether the West, continuing a long retreat, is to abandon the whole of Southeastern Europe and Turkey, with all key communications in the area, to the iron curtain of the regimented Russian economy, or whether the Western powers are somewhere to make a stand.”²⁰

Key Issues. More and more it appeared that Russian economic domination of Eastern Europe and the control of the Eastern Mediterranean were the key issues between the two great powers. Speaking in Paris, on October 4, Secretary Byrnes called on the Soviet Union to “decry not only war but the things that lead to war.” He added that “nations may seek political and economic advantages which they cannot obtain without war.” He hoped that Stalin’s statement would “put an end to unwarranted charges that the United States is seeking to encircle the Soviet Union or that the responsible leaders of the Soviet Union so believe.”²¹

Voting Majorities Ineffective. On October 15 the Paris Peace Conference of 21 nations adjourned, after nearly three months devoted to consideration of the draft treaties of peace for the former satellite countries which had been agreed upon by the Council of Foreign Ministers. By this time the more thoughtful editors were disillusioned with the practicality of settling issues with the Russians in conferences attended by many small states. Under the caption “Fifteen to Six” the New York Times thought, on October 12, that the Conference would hand back to the Big Four much the same set of problems which had been handed to it. On October 16 the Herald Tribune recognized that the voting system had been destroyed. “The hollowness of the mere massing of majorities, of professed appeals to ‘world opinion’ (which does not exist), and of most of the other devices upon which Western policy has relied, has been thoroughly and skilfully exposed by Soviet diplomacy.” Russia had made plain her ability to paralyze any future solution to which she did not voluntarily agree, but she had not abolished our veto.

The London Times decided that the whole idea of deciding issues in international conferences was fallacious. Nothing had been decided if the minority included a great power. The same principle applied to the veto. It was not something “new and extravagant,” but the inevitable corollary of a voting system on major issues in international affairs.” The European press also felt that the blaze of publicity in which the current peace parleys were held made negotiation difficult, if not impossible. One of the American correspondents in Paris summed it up as follows: “In the full glare of publicity the high delegates became politicians rather than statesmen, and each played the role of the stubborn strong man to the electorate back home.” No party leader, or trade union secretary, concluded The Times, would consent to negotiate on vital and delicate issues under the rules which the Paris conference has been misguided enough to impose on itself.”²²

Samuel Grafton noted that Byrnes and Molotov had had their first private talk only a few days before the Conference ended. Ever since the collapse of the conference of Foreign Ministers at London, when President Truman announced there would be no more Big Three meetings, we had had a year of diplomacy by speech making, that is, a period of struggle but not of negotiation. At Paris there had been a fantastic over use of “open diplomacy,” including diplomacy by press handout, which meant conducting war in the press rather than doing business with each other. Grafton recalled the excitement which swept certain circles, especially the Republican contingent in the Senate, when the theory was proposed that the UN General Assembly might come to settle all disputes by vetoless majority vote. Now the Conference had demonstrated the futility of the majority vote thesis.²³

Walter Lippmann argued that Byrnes had failed, not because he and his assistants, Senators Vandenberg and Connally, lacked patience, firmness or sincerity, but because they had tried to do the impossible. They had been trying “by force of argument to induce the Soviet Union to yield power and influence in the territory which the Red Army has occupied.” A year had been lost in challenging the Soviet Union where we were weakest, because we had hoped, “quite vainly, that treaties of peace with the satellites would compel the Red Army to retire from Eastern Europe.”

This approach was a fundamental departure from President Roosevelt’s concept of making the peace on a global basis. By isolating and therefore overemphasizing this one region we had begun an auction for the favor of Germany which would be disastrous if our tactics were not reversed. If and when we renewed genuine diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union, and got down to realities, we would have to begin where Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin left off: “with an examination of the distribution of power among the Big Three.”²⁴

Was the Conflict Irreconcilable? In his radio report on the Conference Senator Vandenberg expressed his conviction that neither side wanted war and that there was too much war talk. He heard “much more war talk over here than I did in Paris.” The AP correspondent Eddy Gilmore, just returned to Moscow after several months in the United States, also concluded, in a dispatch from Moscow: “abroad, talk is about war; here, it is about peace.” The Russians were not being conditioned for war. In Canada alarmist warnings that Canada would be the battleground in any new war had created a difficult problem for the Canadian Government. It was convinced that short of extensive internal treachery invasion of this continent was not possible, but could hardly say so without charges of being remiss in defense of the country. The prophets of danger were frequently retired politically-minded military men on both sides of the border whose utterances got wide publicity. P. J. Philip reported that they had begun to build up “an atmosphere of uneasiness that was unhealthy and might become dangerous.”²⁵

On October 19 the Executive Committee of the Federal Council of Churches of Christ in America adopted a report of the Commission on a Just and Durable Peace on Soviet-American relations which held that Christianity and communism could coexist peacefully on three conditions: (1) the existence of conflicting beliefs must be considered as normal; (2) all men must renounce the effort to spread abroad their way of life by methods of intolerance; and (3) the United States must accept primary responsibility to secure international acceptance of the method of tolerance. The American people must avoid the “death trap” spiral of fear and suspicion which would result in war “merely because many people have erroneously thought it inevitable.”

This declaration was countered by a statement of the Roman Catholic bishops of the United States on the conflict between Russia and the West, which insisted that “In an effort to preserve unity, fatal compromises have been made, either implicitly or by tolerance of shocking aggressions.” The tragic fact was that the cleavage touched “issues on which there can be no compromise.” The real issue was “the question of man as man” and his persecution by the Soviets in the occupied countries.²⁶

Interlude at Hyde Park. On November 3, the conflict over what to do about the Soviet Union was stilled momentarily at the grave of Franklin D. Roosevelt. At a pilgrimage of General Assembly delegates to Hyde Park, President Paul Henri Spaak expressed in a voice trembling with emotion the deep regret of the whole world that the former President was not alive to help it through these critical times. After Spaak had placed a wreath on Roosevelt’s grave, Molotov and the other Russian delegates lingered until the garden had emptied and then placed a wreath of their own, standing for a moment with bowed heads.²⁷

Trusteeship in the Pacific. On the question of trusteeship for the former League of Nations mandates, the Soviet Union opposed in the General Assembly the interpretation of the United States that a “state directly concerned” referred only to the power administering a trusteeship area. This dispute was related to the determination of the U.S. Navy to keep the 1500 mandated islands seized from Japan at such heavy cost during the war. Because of its opposition the State Department was not able to present any kind of trusteeship proposal until very late in the Assembly. Then the plan called for a “strategic area” trusteeship under the Security Council, where we had a veto, instead of the Trusteeship Council. The United States was to be the sole trustee for the islands, with administrative, legislative and jurisdictional authority over them “as an integral part of the United States.” The Soviet Union opposed the latter provision, as it did for all the other mandated areas, particularly the proposal of South Africa to annex the former German South West Africa.

The United States felt about the Pacific Islands much as the Russians did about East Europe. Each was told frequently that it had nothing to worry about in the future, and that it should rely on UN to protect it, but both wanted to make sure.

Franco Spain. There was disagreement also over what to do about Franco Spain. There was a widespread feeling in the Assembly that something should be done about this conspicuous survival of fascism. Two Polish resolutions barred Spain from UN membership, including the specialized agencies, and called for the termination of diplomatic relations with Spain by all UN members. The United States countered with a resolution which incorporated the first Polish proposal, but sought to avoid the second by calling upon General Franco to “surrender the powers of government to a provisional government broadly representative.” The Assembly nevertheless adopted a resolution recommending the withdrawal of ambassadors from Spain and urging the Security Council to take adequate measures to remedy the situation if a government of the people was not formed in Spain in a reasonable time. Six negative votes were cast by South American states.²⁸

General Disarmament. The Russian proposal for general disarmament, on October 29, was startling to the West. Besides being good propaganda, the six point Soviet resolution sought to blanket the American plan for controlling atomic energy by a drive for general disarmament, which was difficult to counter logically, aside from the fact that we did not trust the Russians.

The Soviet move put us on the defensive, but did not, of course, prevent a counter drive to protect the jurisdiction of the AEC and to get inspection, which eventually drew from Molotov the statement that “the rule of unanimity in the Security Council has nothing to do with the work of the control commissions. Therefore it is incorrect to say that a permanent member with its ‘veto’ could prevent the implementation of a control system.”

This concession smoothed the way for agreement on a broad resolution which recognized “the necessity of an early general regulation and reduction of armaments and armed forces;” urged the AEC to fulfil its terms of reference: and called upon the Security Council to draft treaties for the prohibition of all weapons of mass destruction, with strict provision for inspection.²⁹

Here was a plan for a general attack upon the problem of competitive armament in an age of mass destruction weapons, which might have saved Western civilization, had both sides been willing to implement it. Conceivably the grand attack upon our number one problem might have had a better start if it had not been mixed up constantly with the troop count project, backed by Russian charges. The West replied with almost constant questioning of Russian sincerity on the disarmament proposal.³⁰

It could not be defeated, but events and lack of desire on either side to realize it could, and did, make it a dead letter.

Private Talk. On November 25, at the request of Molotov, Byrnes and Molotov had their first private talk during the new session of the Foreign Ministers’ Conference on the satellite peace treaties. It resulted in Molotov yielding a “major point” concerning the powers of the governor of Trieste. Janies Reston thought this might be a harbinger that the Foreign Ministers might be beginning to recognize the limitations of propaganda debates. “Open disagreements openly perpetuated” had been the rule for more than a year.³¹

Soviet Concessions. The next day the headlines reported that the Trieste deadlock was ended. “Soviet yields on new state,” and on the 28th Molotov agreed to the principle of international control of the Danube, and to a conference on the subject.

Rapid progress in agreeing on the satellite treaties of peace followed Molotov’s visit to Byrnes, during which the latter said he saw no hope of agreement and urged that the conference be ended. The next day Molotov began to yield, and “when Mr. Molotov decides the time has come to agree, he does it in a big way.” Some 47 of the 53 recommendations for amendments adopted by the Paris Conference by two-thirds votes were accepted and 24 of the 41 which had been approved by majority votes.³²

Tensions Relaxed. In appraising the terms of the final satellite peace treaties Lippmann did not think there was any substantial difference between the final drafts and the armistice terms fixed by the Soviets two years before. The same agreements could have been had when Byrnes was in Moscow a year ago. “Only then they were denounced as appeasement.”

On the other side of the ledger, the Kremlin had had to recognize that it could not now take over Iran, Turkey and Greece. There had been a temporary stabilization of world power zones which made it incumbent upon the Anglo-Americans to find solutions for the great problems in China, in the colonial areas and the Middle East, and “the expansion of our strategic positions.” Otherwise the Russians would undoubtedly come forward again.³³

This analysis was sound. There had been a stabilization of relations between the victors of the war. The vacuums resulting from it had been filled by agreement, except in Germany and Japan, where possession was mainly in the hands of the Western powers, and even here it was still possible to consider the future of these countries on their merits. In Europe economic production was back generally to pre-war levels and there was remarkable social peace, no strikes and communists cooperating with Catholic parties in the governments. In East Europe some of the Soviet satellites “had enjoyed model democratic elections,” notably Hungary.³⁴

The two sides had spent a year of haggling mainly to try to keep an economic foothold in the territory of the other and both felt they had succeeded. Italian reparations had tied a portion of the industry of Italy to the Russian market and the agreement for a conference on the international regulation of the Danube seemed to promise the West an entry into East Europe. Indeed its entry might be welcomed, on a basis of equality. The new communist premier of Bulgaria proposed greater friendship with the Allies, and the Rumanian Government offered Western capital “a vast and profitable field of activity.”³⁵

The logical balance dictated by the result of the war had been reached. East Europe was lost to the West, politically and socially, but this result had been foreordained at Munich in 1938. The inevitable having been finally recognized, both sides could afford to relax. Bevin thought the sun was rising at last, and Molotov gave the reporters in London cheery Christmas greetings. On December 19, Pravda condemned in sharp language an article in the Soviet Navy newspaper Red Fleet, which had criticized the handling of the convoy to Murmansk during the war that lost twenty-four ships, and this amend was received with great satisfaction in London.³⁶

In Britain a desire to mitigate the tension with Russia was strongly expressed by a rebel group in the Labor Party, which issued a report condemning the “varying degrees of anti-Russian intrigue and propaganda” in the British legations in East Europe. The career diplomats were prone to entertain “reactionary and dispossessed elements” in these countries and color their reports to London accordingly. In an effort to overcome the Tory mentality surviving in the diplomatic service, the report urged the sending of diplomats to new posts and their recruitment from other areas of British life.³⁷

UNRRA Ended. In the United States the trend was still away from amelioration. UNRRA, the great relief and rehabilitation organization of the United Nations was ending its work, with only the worst wounds of the war healed, for reasons explained by the extremely conservative columnist Mark Sullivan. We had contributed 72 per cent of the large sums spent by UNRRA, but control of the spending was exercised by “over forty nations, of which we were one.” UNRRA had sent relief wherever it wanted to, including Yugoslavia which had shot down one of our planes and to countries which “took positions contrary to ours or critical of ours at the peace conference in Paris.” Moreover, when a committee of our Congress undertook to investigate the operations of UNRRA it had “asserted its immunity from Congressional process.” Hereafter we would control the expenditure of our own money.³⁸

A Republican Congress Elected. Sullivan spoke with some authority, because an event of very great importance to American-Soviet relations had occurred in early November 1946. The Republicans had won control of both houses of Congress. It had not been expected that they would get the Senate.

The principal reason for this surprising result, it transpired later, was that large numbers of Democratic and independent voters did not vote. They were dispirited by the loss of Roosevelt, upon whom they had relied so long, and discouraged by the ineptness of the Truman Administration. The dismissal of Wallace had also had a larger effect on the left wing of the party than the vote for Wallace in 1948 indicated. The labor organizations were also apathetic. These factors made for a small vote. It proved to be only 34,400,742 as compared to 48,025,684 in 1944 and 48,489,212 in 1948.

On their side, the conservative interests had conducted a wide advertising campaign throughout the war to discourage innovations after it, and to suggest that everything about our system was right. In the campaign of 1946 this drive moved over to the offensive and identified virtually all liberal ideas and individuals with communism. On October 7, Representative Wright Patman of Texas characterized this technique as “fascistic in concept and in execution.” He alleged that the Republican campaign chiefs Representative Clarence Brown of Ohio and Carroll Reece of Tennessee asked “just like Hitler did, that the people put their party in power to destroy communism.” They were ably aided, said Patman, by the publisher Frank Gannett, who had organized the Committee for Constitutional Government in 1936, headed by Edward A. Rumely, a convicted German agent in World War I, which had, according to Congressional records, spent $10,000,000 over a seven year period for 82,000,000 pieces of literature and recordings.³⁹

The Cry of Communism Effective. Marquis W. Childs wrote that shrewd analysts had concluded that “the cry of Communism, which was raised by Republicans from one side of the country to the other,” was one of the most potent forces in their victory. He noted that on September 30 FBI chief J. Edgar Hoover had “let loose a resounding blast against Communists in the U.S., saying more or less directly that they were at work at every level and in every organization.” Hoover’s charges were “repeated over and over again throughout the campaign.”

Then Childs uttered a very prophetic warning: “This could be the prelude for the kind of Red hunt that took place after World War I.”⁴⁰ He did not foresee that the imminent witch hunt would bite much more deeply and last far longer. Lippmann even hoped, on November 16, that the House Committee on Un-American Activities would be curbed. He assumed that the Republican majority would “strip Representative Rankin of the tyrannical power which he has usurped, and put an end to this man’s lawless, subversive, and outrageous attacks on the constitutional liberties of the American people,” but under J. Parnell Thomas the committee was to be still more irresponsible.

Organic Opposition to Russia. The election of an extremely conservative Republican Congress, to say the least, came just at the time when a stabilization of relations among the great powers occurred, and when a general letdown in the tension between them was indicated. The detente might still occur, but the triumphant Republicans, including most of the powerful Americans who hated and feared communism, along with radicalism and liberalism, were not likely to encourage it. As Grafton said, the Republicans were not a war party, as the communists alleged, but they had “an organic opposition to Russia.” He suggested that conservative foreign policy was “a planless and possibly explosive mixture of contradictory elements, a real desire for the national comfort and frugalities of peace, plus a basic inability to live with the strange other half of the world.”⁴¹

What he did not foresee was that a new crisis in Europe would come swiftly with the New Year and that when it did President Truman would outdo the Republicans in taking a strong line against communism, and Russia, everywhere in the world.

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