Decisions At Yalta

A study of the effectiveness of summitry as a means of diplomacy. Using the example of the 1945 Yalta conference between Churchill, Stalin and Roosevelt, the author argues that heads of state make ineffective negotiators.

A major new history of the eight days in February 1945 when FDR, Churchill, and Stalin decided the fate of the world Imagine you could eavesdrop on a dinner party with three of the most fascinating historical figures of all time. In this landmark book, a gifted Harvard historian puts you in the room with Churchill, Stalin, and Roosevelt as they meet at a climactic turning point in the war to hash out the terms of the peace. The ink wasn't dry when the recriminations began. The conservatives who hated Roosevelt's New Deal accused him of selling out. Was he too sick? Did he give too much in exchange for Stalin's promise to join the war against Japan? Could he have done better in Eastern Europe? Both Left and Right would blame Yalta for beginning the Cold War. Plokhy's conclusions, based on unprecedented archival research, are surprising. He goes against conventional wisdom-cemented during the Cold War- and argues that an ailing Roosevelt did better than we think. Much has been made of FDR's handling of the Depression; here we see him as wartime chief. Yalta is authoritative, original, vividly- written narrative history, and is sure to appeal to fans of Margaret MacMillan's bestseller Paris 1919.

"The story of the fascinating and fateful "daughter diplomacy" of Anna Roosevelt, Sarah Churchill, and Kathleen Harriman, three glamorous young women who accompanied their famous fathers to the Yalta Conference with Stalin in the waning days of World War II"--

The authoritative history of the pivotal conference between Allied leaders at the close of WWII, based on revealing firsthand accounts. Crimea, 1945. As the last battles of WWII were fought, US President Franklin Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin—the so-called “Big Three” —met in the Crimean resort town of Yalta. Over eight days of bargaining, bombast, and intermittent bonhomie, they decided on the endgame of the war against Nazi Germany and how the defeated nation should be governed. They also worked out the constitution of the nascent United Nations; the price of Soviet entry into the war against Japan; the new borders of Poland; and spheres of influence across Eastern Europe, the Balkans, and Greece. Drawing on the lively accounts of those who were there—from the leaders and advisors such as Averell Harriman, Anthony Eden, and Andrei Gromyko, to Churchill’s secretary Marian Holmes and FDR’s daughter Anna Boettiger—Diana Preston has crafted a masterful chronicle of the conference that created the post-war world. Who “won” Yalta has been debated ever since. After Germany’s surrender, Churchill wrote to the new president, Harry Truman, of “an iron curtain” that was now “drawn upon [the Soviets’] front.” Knowing his troops controlled eastern Europe, Stalin’s judgment in April 1945 thus speaks volumes: “Whoever occupies a territory also imposes on it his own social system.”

In Roosevelt and Stalin, Susan Butler tells the story of how the leader of the capitalist world and the leader of the Communist world became more than allies of convenience during World War II. They shared the same outlook for the postwar world, and formed an uneasy yet deep friendship, shaping the global stage from the war to the decades leading up to and into the new century. The book makes clear that Roosevelt worked hard to win Stalin over, by always holding out the promise that Roosevelt’s own ideas were the best hope for the future peace and security of Russia. Stalin, however, was initially unconvinced that Roosevelt’s planned world organization, even with police powers, would be strong enough to keep Germany from starting a new war. In the end we see how Stalin’s opinion of Roosevelt evolved and how he began to view FDR as the key to peace. Roosevelt and Stalin is a revelatory portrait of this crucial, geopolitical partnership.

When Franklin Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, and Joseph Stalin met in Yalta in February 1945, Hitler’s armies were on the run, and victory was imminent. The Big Three wanted to draft a blueprint for a lasting peace—but instead they set the stage for a forty-four year division of Europe into Soviet and Western spheres of influence. After fighting side by side for nearly four years, their political alliance was beginning to fracture. Although the most dramatic Cold War confrontations such as the Berlin airlift were still to come, a new struggle for global hegemony had got underway by August 1945 when Truman used the atomic bomb on Hiroshima. Six Months in 1945 brilliantly captures this momentous historical turning point while illuminating the aims and personalities of larger-than-life political giants.