Transcripts For CSPAN3 The Yalta Conference The Ending Of World War II 20240713

Pivotal meeting between british Prime Minister winston churchill, president franklin roosevelt, and soviet leader joseph stalin. Welcome back to the metal and Paul Hilliard Conference Center here at the higgins hotel. I hope everybody enjoyed their lunch. We spent this morning doing highlevel analysis of the political and strategic situation that existed amongst the allied leaders. As we know, wars are fought on battlefield, not in boardrooms. These summits, though they dictated much of what would happen on the ground, they would not have mattered much if we did not have armies in the field. Our next session will look at how yalta affected the execution of the closing months of world war two. To do this we have asked rob citino. His executive director of the museum of democracy as well as at the world War Ii Museum. He is an awardwinning led terri historian. Military historian. He has published 10 books, primarily on the german army. He has taught for three decades including stints at west point, the u. S. Military academy, and the u. S. Army war college. He first came to the museum in 2012 for our international conference. Then he came in 2013 for our international conference. Then he was one of our featured tour historians at the 70th anniversary of dday crews. Then he came to arch when he 14 conference. Better yet, in 2016, we invited him to join the staff as a Museum Senior historian and we couldnt be luckier to have top notch scholar who guides our content but also a great guy who is in charge of the institute. Ladies and gentlemen, our friend, rob citino. I mean, what was up in 2015 . What did i do . You sit at home and there is a big Party Happening in new orleans and you are wondering what happened. Thank you very much for those comments, jeremy, and thanks for all of you for being here. I distinctly remember the first time i spoke in the museum in 2012 at the international conference. I was at the friday morning atm slot with wind bergh, the eminent historian. I just remember walking into that room and it was jampacked, there was electricity in the air and you had had an audience who came to play. Folks who know a lot and had good questions to ask. I suddenly realized, the National World War Ii Museum is a place where you have to bring your a game. Ive been trying to do that ever since but thank you all for attending the symposium. We worked out, you never know how timely something is going to be when its the 75th anniversary. We knew that was going to happen. Who can predict just how timely these things are going to be and this one in yalta in 75 certainly is. Jeremy is my boss, so i do whatever he tells me to do. He asked me to speak on the role that yalta played with regards to the end of world war ii. To take us out of the realm of diplomacy and put us back into the battlefield and talk more about military operations in strategy. That is what i am going to try to do here and of course i will try to leave plenty of time at the end for questions as well. As youve heard so far today, we usually view the yalta conference i would say through a single lens. The way in which it determined the post war order in which we still live. The post war order seem to be fray and we may actually be living in the post, post war era right now. We will have to determine whether that is true as things play out. That is how we usually see yalta. Determining the post war order especially in europe and let me just say. That makes perfect sense. The soviet occupation and communist asian of Eastern Europe, the iron curtain, the cold war, you can make a case that all of these facts of post war life kind of flow naturally of the negotiations among the big three iota. I am still reeling from the first slide doctor put up on yalta with the modern faces superimposed. I have nightmares for the next three days. Seeing it in that light as the land that this is about determining the post war order, you could make various assessments of who won at the yalta conference. For much of the time that ive been alive and working in scholarship, scotland usually gets the morals. I know this from personal experience so if you will indulge me for a moment. I grew up in cleveland ohio, as i like to call it, beautiful cleveland, ohio. On the west side, it was a town with a Huge Population of east european ethnic groups. We used to say, and i have no way of determining whether this was or is actually true, there were slovenians in cleveland and there were in ljubljana, which is the actual capital of slovenia. Probably not true today, it may well have been true when i grew up in the sixties and seventies. Every february there was a mountain of mail to the cleveland plain dealer. The morning newspaper castigating the allies and fdr in particular for having sold poland, yugoslavia, hungary, romania, take your pick, for having sold one of those countries down the river a yalta, that was the phrase that was all was used. Fdr sold pulling down the river or yugoslavia or hungry a yalta. And the seventies, so i was a teenager in 0. 98, one of the biggest diplomatic issues was the return of crown of state stevens to hungry. They are the founder of hungarian traditionally, and had a cricket cross because supposedly was hit by turkish musket ball, i am not sure that is true but the legends of the crown. It was being held in the United States president carter wanted to give back. That was carters explanation. It royal politics in cleveland for the better part of three years. Mary rose was a Cleveland City councilman at the time she sort of leading the charge not to give the crown and sent stevens back to the crown of communism. That was the yalta top for five years growing up about the captive nations of Eastern Europe. Now, what im going to try to argue today that this is another lens through which we can probably should look at yalta. I think it is one that is a little less to use and doctor certainly refer to it enough times. Let me triangle to be a little bit more detail and you can set me up nicely. I think in this light, we could judge it a remarkable success for everyone concerned. That is to gauge yaltas impact at the end of the war itself. On the strategy of the allies and on the actual course of military operations in the worst last months. We are talking about a conference that happened in february of 1945 and talking about a war that came to an end in europe, at least in may and then in the pacific in august and september. How did yalta indicate what happened on the battlefield in those months. Let me begin with a fairly obvious point, and we will start this map for a while, the big losers at the yalta conference were not the east europeans, and especially as they were treated and its horrible that they were under soviet domination, the big losers where the germans, and germany itself. Yalta rammed a final nail in the coffin of the german strategy. Summarized briefly, that strategy ran Something Like this. Germany intended, to make allied as expensive as possible. I think the french revolution style a big call up of the population, a German National uprising. So, the plan actually had been followed since night late 1944 the plan was to call up laps last ditch levied. These are made up of man power, and supply troops, administrative troops, even lightly wounded turned out of their hospital beds, thrown back to the front given a route of antirudimentary training, the big offensive like at the battle of the bulge. They were holding extremely larger segments of the front going forward. At the point where both reserves were exhausted, you know when youve taken every desk jockey and turn them into an infantry man, at the point where those reserves were exhausted, they were turn to italians comprised of the classic old men and young boys grandpas and grandsons in the same units given a single shot anti tank weapon, and sent it to do or die against the evaders. You see pictures of some german shuttle soldiers, and i use that term loosely on the eastern and western front, they do look like sophomores in high school, and in many cases thats what they were. Now when those were exhausted, you run out of old men and boys eventually, then there would be last second partisan resistance all over germany a nation in flames, of people standing up against the hated invader in both the east and west, offered often going under the heading of with a werewolf movement, these were partisans, who would put guerrilla warfare against the invaders. Once again the idea was to force the allies to fight hard. Over every inch of ground. Against a population that was tied from revolutionary socialist. According to the scheme probably in britain a united state first, enemy morale would crack. You cannot fight over every single village in germany, to both armies, the east in the west invaders and meet in the middle. Eventually morale would crack. In the deliberations in the high command of the armed forces, game it was almost always assumed that that would be britain and the and or the United States first. And that was splinter the ground alliance. And that would free german troops, to against the soviet people driving in from the east. There was a strategy, it was discussed all the time at the upper echelons off the german high command, and that morales was the strategy. I read sometimes that hitler had no strategy, he was trying to choreograph a downfall for himself, im not really a fan of that point of view, but you do see it argued from time to time. Now, im saying there was a strategy was lot different and saying there was a good strategy, whether that was realistic or, not an frankly its hard to argue that there was much there that was actually going to work, that entire strategic perspective, was smashed to pieces at yalta. Simply by reaffirming the unity of the grand alliance. Simply by presenting a united front to the german enemy. Simply by implicitly restating the allied commitment to unconditional surrender. It wasnt to a point of discussion wealth of, but it wouldve been rescinded. So implicitly stating unconditional surrender. Simply by elating stalins fears of the west, with somehow going to do a deal against him. Yalta lay the groundwork for the endgame in europe. One that would end, spoiler alert in the total destruction of German Military. Sure that seems inevitable to us today, and also its february this war is going to be over its going to be over in so many months, but hard fighting was going on, all across the front, while the yalta conference was taking place, nobody was doing a victory lap, nobody was driving forward at top speed against negligible opposition, nearly every village in town was being fought over, and talk about the opposition far from the rhineland, so victory seems inevitable, and now if you have a class but university professor, or lecturer and you have the time in your behind on the syllabus, we were just talking about this, believe me youll see the wars over in two months. But if you happen to be there or be with those who are in charge of fighting that war, there was a great deal more to it than that. And if the study of diplomacy, and history tells us anything, it is that nothing is inevitable, there is nothing less inevitable than the end of a war. When it happens. In that sense im arguing that yalta was a kind of a allied victory. At this point in the war, victory was guaranteed, as long as the Brand Alliance held. So the german these alliances these made up of boys, who are not yet of draft age, than men who are really well past that time, the motto was the people stands up, but you know in the face of these vast forces, in the face of a firm grand alliance, the people stood up all right, and the vast majority of them, set right back down again. And hence the mass surrenders at the end of the war, and the lack of any real guerrilla resistance. I think by stating a firm promises, saying there is no room for that type of thing, yalta probably did good work, bringing up german need to surrender. Hitler shot himself because of what happened at yalta as well, i think thats part of what i want to say. The second, follow an impact of yalta at the end of the war, has to do with the shape of operations in europe. In the last few months. So once again in my era, ive revealed 1958, i grew up in the middle of the cold war, maybe at its coldest, we cant argue what its worse womans were, but in my era the story often spoke of a race to berlin. Thats how they characterize the end of the war. And the castigated the western allies, for having lost the race to berlin. Making this mistake, and that mistaken that blunder in that one. Lets surrendering a big chunk of post war germany and Eastern Europe to the soviets. Now there were always, big problems with this, by march 1945 to beginning of march, powerful soviet offensive, had smashed their way into the reich itself and came to rest along the line of the odor rivers, just about 50 miles from berlin. Good at the time, western allied forces, under allied commander eisenhower, was still stuck on the ryan, could 300 miles away from berlin, kisses where we are at the time, and here is where the soviets are sorry sounds like the home team, heres where the western allies were at the time, and heres where the soviets were, there is a discrepancy in moves closer to berlin. But soviet offensive said that smashed their way deep into the right itself, over running the provinces of east pressure, and the coastal province of palm arena. Coming to rest on the line at. Seizing the german Capital First was extremely unlikely for the western allies, short of some miracle. It was also a highly risky operation that i would argue is kind of foreign to eisenhowers strategy. Eisenhower does take his share of risk in the war but by and large, the operations on the map are not what you would consider napoleon it in the chances they take and the risks they are willing to court. There is a little 1967 book by Steven Ambrose of memory. Steven ambrose of course is one of the fathers with this museum along with our very own nick. He wrote a book called eisenhower in berlin 1945. The decision to halt. Not driving for berlin but halting here at the elbow where americans would eventually stop. He was one of the first, i think, to make a sustained argument in favor of the decision not to go for berlin, not to risk 80,000 or 90,000 or 100,000 men in a senseless fight for a city that was going to be divided amongst the allies anyway. That is essentially the contour of ambrose his argument in eisenhower and berlin in 1945. It is still a book, like everything Steve Ambrose wrote, it is still a book well worth reading but in fact, the strategic context for all these developments was laid again at yalta, after this show of inter allied unity against germans. A lunch for berlin that snatched the big prize from under stalin snows would have been difficult to justify. I might even say difficult to explain and amongst people who would have a hard time understanding, it would be a lot of americans. Stalin was paranoid of the possibility and paranoia was a way of life. Feeding stalins paranoia was probably not a Winning Strategy for the allies at this point in the war or frankly at any other point. That was the background for the march 28th note from eisenhower to stalin. Telling the soviet dictators that allied forces intended to drive east towards the elbow river with the aim of cutting germany and a half, north and south, not to detour northeast to try to take my point, instead of a messy top speed race to berlin and a subsequent bloody urban melee, which is what the proponents are going for berlin are really asking for, you all to ensure that the war in europe would end with a meeting at the soviet troops in the river of april 25th, 1945. I have to say, having weighed the pros and cons in the places and minuses, its probably a better option and i hope a lot of people in the room would agree with me. What did that decision lead to . Deciding to forgo risky, longdistance strike at berlin allowed the u. S. Army to focus on a juicy operational target. The encirclement of the main german force in the west. There was a stroke of luck on march 7th as u. S. Forward units, ninth armored division, seized and attacked railroad bridge over the ryan river at the town of armada, which is going to be here at the bottom of this. You may know the story, truth rushing forward, there is a german bridge that has not been blown yet. German troops on the bridge and on the opposite side of the river and pressing the buttons and pressing every switch they could to block the charges that will destroy the bridge and american troops are already on the bridge, they press it, it blows, illicit in the air and it comes back down from to rust and tack. It was one of the most amazing moments in all of world war ii. Naturally, it is rather freakish by all accounts, the bridge should have gone into the river and the nazis reacted as you would expect, rounded up all the troops who were responsible for it and had them shot. It is really to mean nothing more than just a horrible stroke of bad luck from the german perspective. At any rate, the american see the bridge over the rind and that was getting over the ryan, it is now crossing the little stream in your backyard. It is a major mississippi style river and it was going to be difficult to have any kind of crossing operation. By the end of the month, massive ally forces were driving over the ryan had he east. In concert, with an attack across the ryan by general montgomery to the north, for included a gigantic airdrop behind german lines. The allies in circled an entire German Army Group here in the fifth germanys industrial heartland. Nearly 400,000 troops of army grubby of actually surrendered. That is fifth pans or army and 15th army marching into captivity nearly and told us, nearly half 1 million prisoners. A hall of p. O. W. That the u. S. Army had a hard time processing them and kept them out and camps, open air camps, along the ryan. Under horrible conditions, under the elements, but there was just too many p. O. W. s to do more with them at the time. The battle of the pocket, as a sometimes call it, because it is an encirclement. They had a cauldron battle battle of encirclement. The battle of the rubber pocket was nothing left then the u. S. Military victory of alltime. The german Commander Army grubby, seeing the writing on the wall about the future of the german roy effort took his own life in the aftermath of the debacle, he shot himself and it seems to be a fitting ending to the battle of the river since German Military power in the west had now definitely been broken. I might say, you are hearing you are driving here to berlin, while this big forces sitting on your flight is probably impossible anyway. Theres all sorts of reason that the bourbon option is really not realistic in terms of either operations or strategy. As youve already heard, one other decision had been taken a yalta that i think is important to this narrative. This one had to do with the wrap up of the pacific war. Stalin promised essentially to enter the fight versus japan in two or three months after germany surrendered and the war in europe was terminated. Two or three months, it was going to be a colossal logistical challenge to get to the heart of europe and the trans submarine runway and fight in east asia. Two or three months and could not get more definite than that. Stalin lied and cheated his way through a career as a miserable human being, i think, but he kept that promise at least. He did stay true to this one. On august 9th, 1945, so about three months after the end of the war in europe, the soviets launched a great invasion of japanese occupied. I love this map. It was not until i was sitting and admiring it for 20 minutes and i realized it was in spanish. It is taken from a spanish source and i will be happy to talk through anyone who needs that. The graphics are beautiful. On august 9th, 1945, the soviets launched a tremendous invasion of japanese occupied manchurian. They called it in the soviet way, theres always hes won titles to these titles, manchurian strategic operation. And has become customary to call it operation august storm. This is amazing because the soviets never use that a retired an expert on all things soviet military, he called his book august storm in 1983 and is my understanding that is why we all refer to this operation is august storm and frankly if the option is that strategic operation, maybe we are better off with august storm, whatever you call it. It was one of the wars most massive and successful blows. With three fronts, the germans use the term front in the way we use army group. We use it and they indefinite way. The soviets have a technical use for it. Three great army groups were fronts of raided around the great mind korean the second far Eastern Front and the first far Eastern Front. Getting precise numbers is never easy for a soviet operation because the soviets were always all over the place in their numbers. It was often part of disinformation campaigns about how big these operations had been. Let us say roughly 1 million and a half men, i am going about 500,000 per front. The japanese forced defending manchuria, the army usually in japanese, propaganda the great army, its almost always refer to that by the japanese, but they had been sitting in occupation, garrison duty, insurgency for over a decade. Its best units its elite units, had been blood off for the fight in the pacific in 1945. It was far below its strength, the had they had robert fruits, and obsolete equipment. The soviet mechanized assault, simply blew it away. Trying to think of some other way to say it and use a technical term, but the soviet operation simply smashed their army. I think looking at 1944, but it is the anniversary or the greatest soviet operation of the war, the russian offensive, that smashed the german army, if you could use this as a verb the great army was. It was vaporized in just about two weeks of fightings. Hundreds of thousands of japanese in other words, therefore simply the Japanese Forces simply dissolved. Please note that date august, the u. S. Dropped a bomb in august six on here sheila, and nagasaki on august 9th. News arrived on the impact among manchuria. About the same time that they drop the second bomb on nagasaki. Without refighting the scholarly battle over the bomb, and the impact of the japanese people to surrender. I think it is reasonable to say, that the smashing of an entire japanese field army, in manchuria, played some role in japanese strategic deliberations. They would been other fools if they didnt. August storm, in other words along with hiroshima and nagasaki, helped to end the pacific war. That meant no operational, and the implied largely american innovation, that meant no operation cornet, the American Invasion of haunt you. No campaign to fight through the japanese home islands, which wouldve created monstrous casualties, much likened to okinawa. And again without refighting the entire scholarly debate over casualty instance, lets say the truman was correct on some level, and an invasion of japan wouldve been bloody indeed. What were talking about japanese surrender let me make one more point, and my predecessor just made that point and i believe it deserves repeating, even if you said that manchuria the defeat meant nothing to the japanese surrender, im sure that some people in the room could make that argument, but if you say that the allies had no way of knowing that, when they were begging stalin, back in february, at yalta to join the war against japan. I like what doctor plucky said, you round them into another and they blow up. It requires an act of imagination for anyone who is not a Nuclear Physicist. Any Nuclear Physicist in the room . I just thought i should ask before i say Something Like that. The allies did not know they were going to have an atomic weapon, they were spending a lot of money on it there were assurances from the scientists but nobody knew they had the atomic bomb, at the time they knew there were going to need soviet help and they were willing to negotiate with stone, well i think this is probably a good point to end and then throw open the floor to questions as a blueprint for the post war world which our looking at yalta today, im not sure wed like i like it all that much maybe im still that kid in cleveland reading letters from polls and armenians in perhaps the west couldve driven a harder bargain with stalin if only with words and gestures you are all a lot smarter than i am but as a roadmap for the military and game in europe yalta was the most successful of all the wartime conferences perhaps unintentionally but nevertheless it was nothing less than the blueprint for allied victory thank you very much. Thank you rob we will start with an online question so i can survey the crowd, the first question them is one of and historians favorite, hypothetical, what if, what if the western allies, had moved to berlin not so much giving up the territory that eisenhower had said, but how would that battle have played out differently than this soviets battle for berlin. In some hypothetical man in the high castle, for alternate history battle a fight for berlin, in which the western allies had managed to move to berlin, there are so many what ifs, that its difficult to do that, the allies were almost certainly talking about Something Like it wouldve been them like dropping airborne divisions and trying to relieve them, but what i just outlined, lets say great, if you can force the germans to defend in the ring around berlin, and you have powerful forces coming in on both sides, the germans would have lost berlin. Maybe it would have been quicker. But let me just say that kind of is what happened. The soviets surround oberlin, and they tactic from all sides. It was a concentric attack. Finally the sector what the germans call central the center of the heart of berlin, when you got down to that point, and there was the one mile separated the two spearheads soviet spearheads, it took a week of fighting to cross that mile. It bears in mind, the defenders of berlin who they were at this point, it was assessed a vision, like norwegians a daines, there were units of the ss division, which is down to battalion size, charles among, them theres isis division the dutch part. Were all the germans. They were norway they were hungry they were all over the capital was being defended by the dutch. But even then fairly motley defenders, hat was able to stay for a week, and massive casualties, but virtually all of them died when trying to defend somebody elses capital in essence, but if the question is sort of a path in question, the American Army went up against the russians in 1945, because this was a favorite pastime of my generation growing up. Its what our fathers would say very often, should listen to patent general paton. We soviets had far more impact, more mechanized tank divisions, lot more tanks than we had some, the western allies wouldve had air power, and the soviet could not more than so its got imagine in their wildest dreams, and they could imagine it also when they came up against in or normandy,. So both sides would have had advantages, if the americans had an atom bomb, well thats another story altogether. Now i love hypotheticals, and i love this is my lifes work, to sit around and answer these kind of questions, but really i think what you have to do success the probability and discuss the strategic situation, that why thats why its valuable to do, but im not ready to declare a victor in the war between the red army and the allies in 1945. We will go to build to your right here, hi bill was there ever any serious consideration to make a move on berlin . I guess it depends on what you mean by serious consideration, there are a lot of stat studies done, just as they were lots of studies done on sicily and in sicily on the potential of seizing roam, some type of Airborne Forces at that point, u. S. Airborne troops their engines were revving up when the operation was called off. There certainly staff studies done on how many divisions, and this is how i can say with some assurance that this would have not been and lunch by the u. S. Army, it wouldve been a strikeforce by airborne divisions later units, weaponize units that were stripped down with heavy weapons. So they could move are rapidly. interpreter what that would have meant, when they got to berlin, was very difficult to fight in the city itself. City fighting again i am able to say these things because we can read the studies. City fighting requires heavy weapons to knock down buildings. It is what you are doing going block by block. Serious consideration, if yalta was february 4th and the bridge seized in early march and then briefly look like maybe the party is open in berlin. It would come to an end by the middle of march when eisenhower was still here in that stolen suspected it, that is when eisenhower himself sent a note to stolen. It is unusual to stop to think about it. It field commander sending a no to the enemy general and political a funny. There was, again, it all depends on what you mean by series planning. We will go to the audience here with jim. You raised a slightly intriguing question. Eisenhower, stalin and a note. Did his bosses know about that or did they tell him to go do it . This is like being this is like being the director i just want to make sure everyone is in the loop. Certainly, washington seem to know about eisenhowers letter in advance but one person who did know about eisenhowers letter in advance was churchill and he was fairly burnt about it. The Eisenhower Churchill relationship and we dont talk about it enough, eisenhower, roosevelt and maybe we are in sues me, churchill and roosevelt and were interested in eisenhower and montgomery, general to general. The Churchill Eisenhower relationship was also crucial and bears a little bit more tension. That is my understanding. Churchill was more upset about it but washington certainly knew about some reputation representations. The next question comes from mike online and im going to ask a followup to it. Maybe best for the panel to discuss this but is there any evidence they discussed the seizure of german scientists and research. My followup is, does the halting at the elbow allow them to focus on the hunting and the nazi scientists . I love what i am able to do this. I really dont know, i dont know the details of the protocols that were discussed at yalta. Lets say that one for the panel. I dont see why the halt at the elb would stop that. It means that we missed a lot of scientists and picked up and went into the soviet captivity. I dont think there was i dont think those two things are related. Go to your left on the front row here. Go easy, joe. The final months of the war another Party Leaders killing civilians left and right, in the book it shows a really fractured and suicidal german population. Its a great book. It is fantastic. At what point do they just have to admit that it is over . Is it at yalta, is it the collapse of the rake . Is it the defeat of the ok w. . Where did you have to throw in the towel . Of course dismissing the fact that you are led by a mad man who is refusing to throw in the towel. That is a good question. I had to think about it a lot in my own research and book. After the war, german general her writing on those very popular memoirs. There is a pile of them. They were all saying, we are really early, i knew the moment i met hitler, this is going to be trouble. I knew the moment he just decided we are going to invade poland. This is not going to work. Operation barbara . What a naughty idea. That is not it is not what they were saying at the time. Whether you are a convinced national socialist, whether you read the racial treatise is or not, at some point, being a convinced National Soil socialist boiled down to being hitlers person. That is why his suicide was so crucial to the ultimate and final collapse of german resistance all across the front. Look, if modal. Modal is not a good example because he did not serve, he shot himself before the end the war. After the war he said, when i heard of the outline, which is the battle and invasion of the ardennes and led to the battle of the bulge. Then you when you work the. They wanted us to go to antwerp. I said, if we get to the muse we should get down to our knees. Look, im just going to say this and try to lay my cards on the table. If he knew that operation was st. Louis, that he got 100,000 german soldiers killed for no reason at all. It is a bogus concept of loyalty that only goes up. Generals have some loyalty to the men under their command as well. I dont know, when did most germans realize the cake was up . Perhaps for many of them it was suicide. Youd be better off just admitting that. I was loyal to the end than to say i knew the operation was stupid. It is not what he said in his order of the day. Forward for the furor, to victory and on and on and on. That is the most despicable aspect of the german officer court. Sorry to bomb everybody out. I get off on these tangents. To your left here. Sure. In the decision of the japanese to surrender, how much did manchuria represent in terms of the resources left for the support of the army . That is a good question. I hesitate to give percentages but of course, manchuria is a resource, the region, which the reason why d. C. Used it in 2001. There was still those in Japanese Foreign servers who were holding out some hope that the soviets could work a could serve as an term eds airy between them, japanese in the western allies. The reason for this is, they were not at war. The japanese and soviets signed a non aggression pact. There was at least a faint of hope. You can say, that is the craziest thing i ever heard and asking the soviets to intervene. The british and american not going to go for that. You are probably right. People hold off all kinds of ideas to prove silly or wrong. That is what is really an issue here. It is not that they invaded manchuria and see a particularly wealthy province, its that they violated the non aggression pact and had now come into the war against japan. If that was your final hope then its now completely gone. I think that is the issue, much more than the resource issue. One more thing, even the resources of maturing is very difficult to get them to the home islands by now. Japan is completely blockaded, his merchant marine has been torched by u. S. Submarine attacks. Again, not so much the resource issue. I thought i saw a young lady with her hand up. This is not the hand i saw. Historians occasionally engage in retroactive moral judgment. Here is one. Okay, good. Lets say that roosevelt and his assistance entered into a quid pro quo agreement with stalin. We will give you poland, yugoslavia, czechoslovakia and hungry, you give us 1 million and a half in two to three months against the japanese. What do you think . Let me just make sure i know what im answering, are you suggesting that is what happened at yalta . Are you saying thats what happened at yalta . Kind of sort of. I dont think there is any doubt that yalta, much of what was discussed there can be qualified or characterized as real politic. You keep poland and you give us half 1 Million People to raid japan. Thats pretty much what was done. People we say wont do things for altruistic motives, but they will do things as a quid pro quo. You do something for me and i will do something for you. If thats how yalta was then why all the talk about the United Nations . The United Nations is not that real politic, it is the liberal view that people cooperate with one and other, they are sometimes willing to give their sovereignty to some extent for some unity. So what you have said is characteristic of the western allies, they wanted some stuff they got some stuff, stolen wanted some stuff, he got some stuff. I am deliberately talking silly but, that is what reale is all about. I think Foreign Policy has to have an essence of both. Youre walking into a room saying im not going to get everything i want but im going to get something i want. Youre also have to be willing to give up things. I think thats important for Foreign Policy. And i think to sell that Foreign Policy in a democratic society, there are elements of idealism but i think thats where roosevelt was successful, im a roosevelt fan. I dont mind stay saying that, but i think thats what he did. We have a question from bill. The european war may 8th, that is not happening with the manchurian investigation until august, did uncle joe have plenty of time, to do this long before the ninth, or did he wait for hiroshima before he pill pulled the trigger . He didnt wait for here she must to pull the trigger on the manchurian operation. Because it was too big. You cant just turn on. He required a great deal of preparation, and a great deal of transfer and troops, and it required tens of thousands, and they were transferred across the asian land mass. Until the it was certain that the japanese power had been smashed, it may well have been how he thought, it but it does not appear, and i will tell you 100 that doctor dr. Plokhii he could probably answer better than me, but i dont think an operation as big as august storm, can be plugged in that last moment. It would be too much planning necessary there. Three months, and today as it turned out, there were one day late on their promise, but that was left deliberately as an approximate. She right here rob gore. I was going to come to your defense but i think all sit down now. Theres an element to the manchurian operation, at this point the soviets regards whatever they get in manchuria as reparations, hundreds of thousands of japanese soldiers, went tos labor camps slave labor counts four years, industrial developments, there was all kinds of industrial infrastructure, that the russians wanted they didnt want to destroy it, they just wanted to take it. And that makes a lot of difference, on the line of military operation. This one was done for some impact, coin to contact, front loading, overrun smashed the military opposition so youre not fighting your way through, all of the other cities of the manchurian heartland. Robbed he right back to the middle. Do we know what stalin knew about the atomic bomb when he planned to launch this operation . Stalin must have had some intelligence on such developments, and everyone was working on the same scientific bed of knowledge. The announcement in potsdam, was thankless. They said we have this bomb of enormous power, stone said oh yes its interesting. He deliberately was under well made. He probably want to give the idea that were gonna have a few thousand of those coming up the road narrowing production as well. So i dont think the atomic bomb was as much as secret as they thought it was. Just because the science was international. The science was international before world war ii. Can all right ladies and gentlemen, round of applause for rob citino. You