The World at War (84 page)

AMBASSADOR HARRIMAN

It was one of the first diplomatic conversations that Truman had and I can only say that Truman used good, solid Missouri language, which was very definite. Molotov had talked to other people that way but no one talked to him that way. So he was very much upset and gave the impression that this was a new voice and not Roosevelt's any more. So I felt it was important to have Stalin realise that there was really no change. Hopkins was the man that Stalin knew, and had a high regard for him because he was the first Westerner that came only a few weeks after the Hitler attack on Russia, and he showed him consideration in the way that I hadn't seen him show anyone else. I suggested to President Truman, and he finally agreed, to send Hopkins who was quite sick and he got up out of his sick bed and went to Moscow. Stalin received him warmly, he was there with his wife and there was a certain good came out of the trip. There were one or two difficulties about the United Nations, which was settled at that time. And so Stalin accepted it as an important gesture. But on Poland, Hopkins thought he had got Stalin to make certain fundamental concessions; they were only superficial, and I was quite sure they wouldn't be of value but Hopkins came home feeling that he had achieved something.

JOHN McCLOY

There was a difference of view in regard to that, I think the predominant view was the sooner we get the Russians into this situation the better. I remember one of the very first meetings I had with Mr Truman, somewhat to my immediate surprise he said, 'I think my main objective now is to bring the Russians into the war [against Japan].' I didn't happen to agree with that. I thought we had the Japanese licked without them and it was no problem bringing them in. There was a number of people who had a very strong feeling that it was necessary to bring the Russians into the war in order to avoid further casualties, but there was another view present that it was really pretty late in the game and the Russian contribution couldn't really amount to very much and we were having already some difficulties with the Soviets in other theatres and why complicate this one in view of the enormous contributions that we had made towards a victory.

DR STEPHEN AMBROSE

American historian

Potsdam was not that concerned about Poland because the Polish question had already been decided by the physical fact that the Russians controlled Poland. The West could make verbal complaints but there was nothing they could do about it, short of going to war with the Soviets, and no one in the summer of 1945 gave it any serious thought at all except General Patton. But that was Patton's bravado and bluster and no one in positions of authority ever took such nonsense seriously. The Red Army would have marched on to the Channel and possibly over to England itself; the end result would have been the Russians would have controlled all of Europe. The West was simply not as strong on the ground as the Soviets.

AMBASSADOR HARRIMAN

Churchill and Eden were there for the early part of the talk, and then the new team came – Attlee and Bevin. So that was somewhat of a break. The discussions were businesslike, cordial, but there were no fundamental agreements that had very much influence on the future. I thought leaving open the Oder–Neisse line was a very great mistake. Stalin wouldn't agree to that and Secretary of State James Byrnes wanted to go home and he made the suggestion of leaving the border to a peace treaty. I thought that was extremely dangerous at the time and I'm very glad that as a result of Willie Brandt's initiative the Germans themselves agreed to accept the
Oder–Neisse line.
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It could never have been changed, since the Poles occupied it without war. But they never really got to grips with any of the issues that were troubling us. Truman had the war in Japan very much in his mind. He was still very anxious to get Stalin to carry out his agreement to attack in Manchuria three months after the defeat of Hitler because the American Chiefs of Staff were still saying the war would last eighteen months and we'd have to land American troops on the plains of Tokyo and there would be a million casualties to achieve the objective. They overestimated, this is always the case: the military overestimates the capabilities of the enemy and somewhat underestimate their own.

ANTHONY EDEN

British Foreign Secretary

Truman, whom I respect highly, was entirely new to the business and his approach was therefore less experienced than FDR's and though he tried to make it very businesslike and firm, in fact I think in his very difficult circumstances, the arrangements reached were not those we wanted, particularly about the Oder–Neisse line. When Churchill and I left, we were very emphatic that we could not agree to those arrangements and I know that Bevin, whom I talked to about this at Buckingham Palace when we exchanged offices, was very conscious of how he must stand up against that situation. But in the events partly caused by our delay in being away, we weren't able to hold out against that, and the arrangements at Potsdam were not those that we wanted in respect, particularly, of the Oder–Neisse line.

AMBASSADOR HARRIMAN

Churchill wanted to stand on the Elbe, he wanted American cooperation but Truman was being advised that we had to redeploy all of our forces to the Far East and he couldn't have done it. Whether that would have been a wise thing to do, some people say we shouldn't have done it, but what would have happened? The best we could have expected would be some agreement which might not have lasted. They had a free election in Hungary and it didn't last and any agreement made under duress, if it had been successful at all, would have been valueless. Secondly, if we stood on the Elbe they would have not permitted us to move into Austria as they did and Austria would be behind the Iron Curtain. But when I think beyond that, then it would have been clear that we would have been responsible for the Cold War. Instead of that, it's quite clear that we did everything to carry out our agreements and it was Stalin that broke them.

DR AMBROSE

Already Western leaders were deeply suspicious of Soviet intentions, primarily because of the Polish question. Russian actions in Poland and eastern Europe were feeding Western suspicions about Stalin's attentions; by Potsdam the feeling, especially in the States and most especially with President Truman, was that, 'Ah, Stalin is another Hitler.' They didn't think, Oh, we made a great mistake in the war and backed the wrong side – they were perfectly clear Hitler was the greater menace and had to be crushed, and that the crushing of Hitler absolutely depended on the Red Army. Once the vacuum had been created you were faced with the fact that the Americans were demobilising, or redeploying, pulling the Army out of Europe and getting ready to send it over to Japan because they expected at that time to have to invade the home islands for the final defeat of Japan. The British are quite clearly exhausted and not capable of controlling the continent by themselves, and there are three hundred Russian divisions in East Germany and these loomed large in everyone's thoughts.

ADMIRAL LORD LOUIS MOUNTBATTEN

Supreme Allied Commander South-East Asia

The first thing I did at Potsdam was to have a meeting with the Combined British and US Chiefs of Staff to discuss our future operations. I also talked on our combined plan for defeating the Japanese completely. I was then asked whether I would be prepared to take over practically the whole of MacArthur's theatre so that he could concentrate on the assault on the islands of Japan themselves. And I said yes, but not until I'd really advanced down below, opened the Straits of Malacca and was in a position to take over the files, the Intelligence Officers and the information needed to carry on when the war goes to them. Then I was invited to see President Truman and he shut all the doors and told me in great secrecy the fact that the Americans had an atomic bomb, which they were going to drop very soon, and which he thought would bring the war to an end. He even said the reason for his decision was that this would save thousands upon thousands of Allied lives which would otherwise be lost in that frightful massacre, which would take place on the shores of Japan itself. Then Churchill told me the same thing. He said, 'They will surrender and what are you going to do about it?' I said, 'Well, you've only just told me – I haven't given it a thought.' He said, 'You must go in with your soldiers and you must take possession immediately. How will you do that?' I said, 'Fortunately I have a great operational force at the moment with a quarter of a million soldiers which I'm going to land in Malaya and we're going to seize Malaya and Singapore very quickly.' He said, 'Send a telegram as soon as the bomb drops to your deputy Supreme Commander to sail your convoy at once.' I said, 'I can't do that, they've got to be tactically loaded, it's going to take some time.' 'Nonsense, tell him they can sail on the assumption there'll be no opposition when they get there.' I said, 'May I tell him about the atomic bomb?' 'Certainly not, it's much too secret.' I said, 'They'll think I'm mad if I send him a telegram like that.' 'Discipline, discipline, they mustn't question your sanity, they must do what they're told.'

JOHN McCLOY

I remember I was at
Potsdam and the debate that went on there, when we should tell the Soviets about the bomb. I think very early we came to the conclusion we had to tell them, the bomb hadn't really exploded at that point and this was one of the reasons given for not telling – suppose it doesn't explode. So with bated breath we told Stalin about the bomb and waited for the effect. To our great disappointment Stalin seemed to be thoroughly unimpressed with it, we thought he'd be flabbergasted but he just let it pass off. Whether he knew about it already, there'd been some defections, whether he didn't want to show any great emotion in regard to it, I don't know. All I know is he took it very much in his stride and went on to the next item on the agenda. This rather dismayed Stimson because he thought this would immediately be a great Russian rush to sit down and talk to us about the future implications, what the future uses of it were, but he got no encouragement at all.

ANTHONY EDEN

Even after the first proofs of the power of the atomic explosion, some people were quite sceptical about its military decisiveness. I remember Admiral Leahy being in rather that tone of mind. However, it was agreed between us that Truman should tell Stalin of this discovery briefly and Churchill and I knew this was going to happen and we watched the scene with some interest. Just as we adjourned Truman went up with his interpreter to Stalin and told him and all Stalin did was nod his head and say thank you quite gently, and his expression changed in no way. That's how much the Russians had already discovered beforehand, and that's why it was received as a quite ordinary piece of news.
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DR AMBROSE

Molotov raised the question of what happened to the
Italian colonies, he wanted to know, and Churchill said, 'We took them,' and Molotov said, 'That's very interesting – who made that decision?' And Churchill said, 'Well, of course, we conquered them, so now they're ours.' Italy of course had been an enemy of Russia, Italian armies had invaded Russia and the Russians had felt that they ought to have some kind of say in what was going to happen to Italy and to the spoils that had been taken. Truman raised an eyebrow when Churchill said 'we took them' because the Americans had participated in the process of liberating North Africa, and Churchill then replied that he meant Libya.

ADMIRAL MOUNTBATTEN

Just as soon as Mr Attlee became Prime Minister he sent for me and he discussed what I was going to do. I told him the instructions I'd had from Churchill, which he completely agreed; he then asked me how I proposed to handle the political problems and difficulties faced when such a large part of the world which had been under colonial administration now suddenly being liberated from the Japanese. I told him that my policy would be the same that I had done in Burma, to come in as friends, as liberators, as people who wanted to help them, not wishing to exact retribution and vengeance, and trying to find a friendly way to proceed in the future with the various governments which were responsible for them. He said, 'I entirely agree. Go ahead and do just that, you have my full backing, you have my full trust.' That made all the difference because I don't think I would have quite the same sort of directive from Churchill.

DR KONRAD MORGEN

SS investigating magistrate

After Auschwitz, I could only shudder when I thought about Germany's future, and I said to myself, If we lose the war the our opponents will tear us apart. I could not actually imagine that we would lose the war, although all the signs made it look that way. Despite the criminal tendency of the leadership I had observed in all my investigations, I still did not believe that this same criminal attitude would be turned on their own German people. In their defence, they were certainly obstinate, they were mad and believed that these were their enemies and must be destroyed. But they were enemies – their own people had done everything their leadership had asked of them and made a superhuman effort. When the people at the top have realised we have lost the war, there is no point in fighting any more – why do they go on and ruin the last few remains of Germany? No government can possibly be so criminal.

SIR HARTLEY SHAWCROSS

Chief British prosecutor at Nuremberg

At the beginning of the war I suppose we in England were much too busy fighting for our lives to think what we were going to do if we won the war. But right at the beginning, before the Americans came into the war at all, President Roosevelt warned the Germans that at the end a terrible retribution would be brought against them. And later, in 1942, he promoted the idea of a trial of war criminals, that is to say of the persons who had been responsible for launching the war on the world. As time went on we discussed it – we British at first were not in favour of a formal trial and the Russians were not in favour of it. We came round gradually to the view that there ought to be a trial rather than executive action and the Russians were persuaded to take the same view. Early in 1945, the spring of 1945, it was decided that there would be a trial of those leaders of the Nazi war movement whom we were able to lay our hands on.