Transcripts For CSPAN3 The Presidency Potsdam Conference 75th Anniversary 20240712

Provided this video. We are at the 75th anniversary of the potsdam conference. Big numbers like the 75th anniversary or hundred anniversary, are always occasions for looking back and for drawing attention. I think there is another reason to look back at potsdam as we are in our own day and age, reentering a world of Great Power Competition and reentering a world where geopolitics seems to have come back to the fore of international thinking in International Relations thinking. So it is well worth us coming back to this subject. Im especially glad to have a chance to talk to you about it. I wish it was in person again, in kansas city. I wish that we were able to do this face to face, but we will do the very best that we can. The key thing here, that i want to return to throughout this presentation, is shown by this photograph here, of Winston Churchill, harry truman and Joseph Stalin smiling and shaking hands. And the point that i really want to reiterate here, is that these three men and most of the advisers around them did not believe that what they were doing at potsdam was laying the seeds of a cold war. We know from the scholarship of the 19 sixties, 19 seventies and beyond, a lot of fist organs red potsdam backwards. That is to say they read it as the start of the cold war. But as this photograph shows here, these three men in their staff came to potsdam not to be in a cold war amongst themselves but to celebrate, really, the end of the war with germany, figure out with the post world war was going to look like and plan for the final victory over japan in the pacific theater. This photograph very much reflects the spirit of potsdam, which i will talk a little bit more about in a bit, which was happy, which was victorious, which was joyful, which was really celebratory in the way that they were looking at the post war world. Although they had suspicions about one another and although their country certainly did not share all interests, very few people left potsdam believing that relations were going to be very difficult Going Forward. That illusion is going to get shuttered very quickly, i would argue within weeks or months of the end of this conference. But the mood of the conference itself is very different, mostly what they are trying to do, and this is the second theme that i really want to talk about tonight, most of what they are trying to do is avoid what they believe had been the mistakes of their predecessors 25 years earlier. They wanted to avoid the mistakes that the treaty of versailles had committed and that was i will talk a bit about what those were. With a really want to do is leave europe in a Better Foundation and leave it in a better position than Woodrow Wilson did and george clam also and the generation of 1919 in paris. They did not know the future of course, but they did know the past. Another thing that i was interested in in shaping this book and thinking about writing this book, it is the way that these men of 1945, and they were all men, looked back at 1919, and what they saw and why it matter to them. My favorite example of this is what happened to harry truman on june 28th, 1919, the very day that the treaty of versailles was signed in the palace just west of paris. Harry truman hopefully was not thinking about International Relations very much, because it is the day that he got married. And this is a reminder to that these leaders are people. I wrote in the book and i think that i would stayed to this, that while one could imagine joseph style in 1919 or Winston Churchill in 1919, believing that one day they might had their countries governments, it is kind of hard to believe that this guy thought on june 28th 1919, that he would one day lead to the government of the United States. Yet there he would be down the road. At the moment of the treaty of versailles, of course, the world is in the same kind of flux it has been in 1945. There is the same level of confusion, the same Great Power Competition, there is the same question of whether an alliance that won a war can also function in the peace. So all of these things are coming back. And as i will cover also in this lecture, i would argue that that with the exception of the one major big exception, of the atomic bomb, all of the issues that they discussed potsdam would have been quite familiar to people that attended the paris peace conference in 1919. The fundamental issues had not changed. This is something that they were all aware of. The other thing that i want to stress before we go any further, is that with the exception of harry truman, many of the senior people, and Joseph Stalin, many of the senior people who attended the potsdam conference had actually been at the versailles peace treaty, or had been there for the paris peace conference. They include the american secretary of state james byrnes, who may have been the person who convinced Woodrow Wilson to go to paris in person. They included churchill, who was quite disappointed. They include the Great British economist john maynard keynes, who was at both potsdam and the paris peace conference. For those people, the paris peace conference is not something they read about in history books, or something they had a vague memory of. These were fundamental shaping events in their own lives and their own political careers, and they believed that the reason they were here fighting a Second World War, closing the central war, is because of the mistakes that were made at the end of the first. And all of them understood this when they came to potsdam in 1945. The very first thing harry truman said in his role as president s president of the United States of the conference, was a warning to everybody seated around the table, i will show you just a minute, not to repeat the mistakes of 1919. Before going to potsdam, Joseph Stalin said the same thing to the american representative joseph davies, that the one thing they had to do was make sure they did not make the same mistakes. So what mistakes did they make . This is one of those things that, to me, it was very interesting, because virtually everybody who came to potsdam had their own view of what they thought had gone so badly wrong a generation earlier. John maynard keynes said to the american secretary of state living mistake had been imposing reparations on germany. That germany proved unable to pay. That disrupted the european economy, and that forced the United States, in james byrnes view, to put money into the european system so that some other form would benefit. There was also the argument that shaping the borders that you see here, this is a map of europe in 1919 after the paris peace conference, that putting a map like this together had also been a mistake. That trying to draw a lines around people where they live had produced states that were either economically unable to could feed themselves, unable to contribute to the overall security of the continent, and in some cases, creating countries like yugoslavia and poland that were simply too wealthy to support any kind of reasonable politics Going Forward. A third argument, and this is particularly a soviet one, is that the big mistake they had made in 1919 must take into account the views of all the people who lived on this map. Stolen was fond of saying that states were not virtuous simply because they were small or new. In his view, what had to happen was that the great power simply had to take control of this conference and not allow the voices of people from all over the world to play a role. So unlike the paris peace conference, which involves people from literally every corner of the globe, in potsdam, the faces will be 95 either soviets, british, or american. As i mentioned earlier, all of these issues that they are dealing with in 1919, come up again in 1945 what to do with germany . Whether the great powers should reconstitute germany, or whether they should enact such heavy reparations against germany that germany becomes economically barren at the end of the war . How to handle the ethnic map of europe . What role should the United States play and what role should multilateral organizations play . All of these questions come up in 1919 and again in 1945, and i would argue, that in many cases in 1945, they would take almost 180degree opposite tactic to the one that they took in 1919. With another thing that is very different of course is the condition of germany itself. This is a photograph taken, two photographs, taken from roughly the same angle. The picture on the right, the building on the far end of the righthand picture, is the new United States embassy just outside the Brandenburg Gate on the side that had been east berlin. That kind of canopy looking thing in the background is the potsdam place, the potsdam plots. The picture on the left is taken at about the same place in 1945. One clear difference between the germany of 1919 in the germany of 1945, is that in 1919, german ashton lists could argue that they had not really lost the First World War, that they had been undercut at home and that the army returned as your wonder when politicians it, undefeated in the field. It is impossible to make that argument in 1945 for the reasons that you can see here. This is done on purpose. The soviets wanted the germans especially, the berliners, to feel the pain. Of the war the devastation that is created here in berlin is so intense that there were Many Americans and british observers who came to potsdam who believed it could never be rebuilt, they might almost be better to bulldoze the city and move the german capitals someplace else. There were people, including the american treasury secretary henry, who wanted that future for germany. He wanted to de industrialized. He wanted to take so much money out of it that it could not rebuild its economy and he wanted to turn it into a federal system where power would be in the german states and very little power would be in the central government, the socalled there were legitimate questions being asked in berlin a 1945. Can the germans live better than the russians, french, polls. How could they possibly be allowed to live better than the jews who had survived the concentration camps and were now wondering europe with no place to go. Fundamentally, the other question that involves history here that to me was very interesting, what do the people of 1945 think caused this war . Is it something that is fundamentally wrong with the germans themselves . If it is, then occupation would be necessary. Is it simply the bag legacy of versailles and the Great Depression which is jon maher kings believed . Thats the case, then reparations were terrible idea and kings his view. The balance of power and europe did it simply get to the point where no one could detain or encircled germany . For what you might want to fix Going Forward in 1945. What you are going to have to do of course, is make clear to everybody that this time, germany is completely and utterly defeated, and they will do this at potsdam, not merely by holding a conference in the suburbs of berlin, but by ensuring that there are no germans faces whatsoever. Potsdam is emptied of the germans before the Conference Begins by the red army as another symbol that this is over. The german power is over, and potsdam is quite symbolic as frederick the greats castle as you see is there. And the palace which is where signed to the conquering nations, the conquering allies, potsdam has the symbolism and it is the place where german and the terrorism began. Where the First World War began. It will now be place for the Second World War at least in europe will come to an end. I cannot prove it, but i think the russians arrived at the conference late in order to make sure that the americans and british saw berlin for themselves. President wilson in 1919 had famously he did not want, as he put it, for his heart to grow hard. Its stalled and wanted was for the american and british leadership to see berlin for themselves. To see as much of journey for themselves as they could and again this produces Different Directions depending on the definition of history. Should the british french and soviets put money into germany to rebuild, or should they leave germany as one soviet observer put it at the margin of subsistence for a significant period of time . This is downtown berlin. This is potsdam, the lovely, elegant suburban which this conference is going to happen. Potsdam has this old tradition of being the home of it is also the place where the german Film Industry had its headquarters and it is the hollywood of germany. Those of you for maybe watching the series of babylon berlin, the Second Season largely takes place and potsdam, and the great movie studios of germany posted several of the parties that the attendees in 1945. It has an image of old sensual german power and the new kind of bourgeois center of power. For that reason, potsdam is very important. The United States did try to get this conference in alaska or in washington d. C. In order to get the soviets to come to the United States because president roosevelt had had to make that great argument the soviets were insistent that the conference would only happen in a place where the red army could guarantee security. The palace was built in the middle of world war i, which i find kind of incredible the crown prince and his wife sicily. They were to move into it at the end of the First World War and this was to be their home. Even while germany is fighting the First World War and trying to win that war, it builds this massive palace to the crown prince. This building will become the center of the conference. It is relatively modern and has electricity and every room. It has modern kitchens. It has been a space for the delegations that can set up offices which i will show you here. When the great powers came, its that what you see here. It is still there. That gigantic red start of geraniums that soviets had planted to greet the great powers as they showed up. Insipid stan, the soviets delighted those areas into three sectors and american, soviet and british sectors to house the greatly eighties when they came. This is the back of the palace. It looks out into a lovely lake. No expense was spared to make this conference the very best that he could be. One of the things i enjoyed going through where that they were not very extensive a woman named john bright who is the protocol director and all the effort she went through to get the conference to go right. Major hotels as well to make sure that all the hospitality was there. Absolutely no expense spared. Milk was brought in from the united kingdom. Ham was brought in from new york sure. When harry truman did not like the sheet music that was in the palace, he had the u. S. Air force bombers fly to paris and bring him back sheet music. Whatever they wanted they could have. They were literally the conquerors coming to rule over. No german faces anywhere to be seen here and potsdam. This is the room where it was used as his office. For most soviet leaders, the soviets are the largest groups to read. Here are our types are not open, and even if they are open there and russia but from what we can tell from the primary sources and there are quite a few contemporary primary sources, the fundamental problem that the russians saw and the paris peace conference in the trio versailles that resulted, is a failure to build states on the border of russia that could access bunkers. With the soviets want our stable, reliable countries that will serve as a buffer not just between the soviet union in germany, but the soviet union in the west that is still seen as a potential Security Threat to the soviet union in the post world war. The second thing, it seems the soviets wanted reparations. They wanted to take as much money and as much Industrial Assets as they could out of germany. Eventually theyll take anything that they can get their hands on. They turned entire infantry divisions, 20,000 men strong, and give them the mission of taking everything that they can get their hands on. They did this and potsdam at the end of the conference. They took like pictures. They took everything they could from the nearby houses. What they did not want they threw into the lake that is behind the palace. Literally, anything they did not want it would throw into potholes. At any rate, the germans would not get it at the end of the war. They are most concerned with making sure that another invasion does not happen. This is the office from the study that harry truman used. Truman is a particularly sympathetic fig figure to me, because when he became president of the United States in 1945, despite the crisis roosevelt was, and truman is kept almost completely in the dark on what american policy is, and in fact when he became president he asked to see the transcripts of the conference so he could figure out with the United States had agreed to do with yalta only to find those transcripts apparently did not exist, so truman is having to figure out what america jury agreed to that youll tell by talking to people who were there and getting contradictory information and contradictory reports. Truman as a senator had found a gap in the u. S. Defense departments budget that he challenged the u. S. Army on. He challenged the secretary of war henry stance and on. Since and said he understood that truman was the senator, but he could not share with that was for. It is only after truman became president that stance and put him aside and explain to him with the Manhattan Project was. That is what human at stumbled on earlier on in the war. With harry truman is interested in is trying to get a handle on what his new responsibilities are. He is interested in what we today what would call a reset with the soviet union. Truman thinks if he could just look the soviet leaders in the eyes he could cut a deal with them. He wants soviet help and defeating japan in the pacific theater. He wants to be sure that the soviet union will participate fully and the United Nations, and that some of the other organizations that the United States is trying to build, and he wants to create a balanced year at that hopefully will mean that the United States will not have to send an army back to europe for a third world war. It is for this reason that the chairman tried to delay the potsdam conference for as long as he could, both to give himself time to get up to speed on these issues, and hopefully to give the scientists and new mexico a little bit more time to work on the Manhattan Project. The weakest of the three great powers is undoubtedly the british, and i love this photograph, because it is taken at a rather silly moment when they lay out three chairs, as you see here for the press to take pictures. The original, originally, churchill was supposed to have the middle chair when the photographers told him he had to move to the chair you see occupied on our left. He did so quite grudgingly, and as you can see in this photograph, he began to move his chair closer and closer, and closer to truman. He wanted to send a message. This is not the only time he did this. That there is an Angle American unity here and the United States and britain are on the same page. You can see the look at Harry Trumans eyes that he is having none of it. So he started to move his chair, closer to the center. Churchill was aware that americas interest and britains interests were beginning to diverge. Britain was going to have to spend some resources to rebuild its umpire. Something the United States under roosevelt and truman said they were not interested in doing. Britain wants to be sure that the United States will in fact commit to europe at all at potsdam. Truman says repeatedly that he does not want the United States have a long term permanent presence in europe. He wants to help the europeans get themselves back on their feet. And he wants the United States to go back to the side of the atlantic ocean. Its also of course the case that truman knows that there is a war still to be one with japan, and that American Military forces will have to be diverted to do that. As i mentioned in the book, it was stolen who decided where this conference will be. It is truman who decides when this conference is going to be. The only thing that churchill is able to decide is the code name of the conference, which he decides will be a cold name terminal. It is also true that the churchill tried everything he could to get human to come to london first before going to potsdam. Truman repeatedly refused. At one point he said he would not allow the conference to be simply a continuation of Angela Merrick and discussion. So, churchill is trying to, as his foreign minister Anthony Eaton said, win on the power of his personality, and that will be difficult for a country that will come out of the war victorious, but knows it will come out of the war in a relatively poor position. This is a picture also wanted to show because of the smiling faces. Hes trumans russia specialist translator. The two men on the right are the serviettes foreign minister and american secretary of state. This is genuine. I do not think they are monkeying for the cameras. They are genuinely delighted that they are meeting in potsdam, that they have defeated nazi germany together. There is certainly, as i said, a suspicion that all of this loveliness and friendship and hugging, and kissing might not last forever, but at least at this moment in potsdam, they see themselves as conquering heroes altogether. And again, as i mentioned, three great powers have decided that they will be the only people. France does not get an invitation. Harry truman was furious with charge the goal for his rude treatment of roosevelt during the war. Truman told james burns is eight, if i want to see the call, i would send for him just as i would ahead of any other minor power, which is a great line. Poland is not invited to the conference either except to give a very brief statement when day of the conference to present various positions. It is the great powers who are going to run the powers and make these decisions. This is the table of the main conference from in the palace unintentionally kept small to limit the power who will attend. Only the people who are sitting at the table are allowed to have a voice. The people you see in the back are there to be advisor. They are there to be translators, and several of them who left memoirs say they spent an awful lot of time cleaning those asked trays so you could see that the route is red. It is by design. You could see in the way theyre starting to think about the way they won when push comes to shove some of the american hardliners and british hardliners also talk about nay need to be very careful that what they do with the soviets is sufficiently strong so that the soviets dont take advantage of the generosity of the west. They do not want to be in a position where the sylvie its come out of this conference too strong. Anybody who want to to make that point a very limited word of course in 1945. Award that remains quite loaded. The big question for the United States has to be, what do we think the soviet union wants. What are they and what could we expect them to do he had never even met a russian. The first russian he needs his molotov the former soviet minister because of his ability to just sit there silently and with no emotion on his face when he did not want to reveal anything that he was thinking. You must have been a difficult person to play poker against. Truman was very good at. It truman assembles his russian team and finds little agreement among even his senior soviet advisers and you can see that the three most important are sitting right there. He is the hardline or the four. There are at least three ways of thinking about what the soviet union will do in the post war period. One way of thinking, which is expressed by robert love it and the socalled soft liners, is that with the soviets really want is in effect, really no different from what the saar wanted in 1914. That is the say, the problem isnt really ideological the problem is just like the czar, what stalin will want is security on his western frontier and access in the south. To renegotiate something called a convention of 1936, to allow soviet ships to pass through the straits unhindered. So by this logic, you dont really need to think about an ideological conflict with the soviet union, and you dont need to worry about giving the soviet union an opening into places where they are unlikely to go. The second way of thinking largely comes from the admiral, who argues that this really is something different, the what you are seeing in the soviet union is not like the czars system, because this truly is a different ideology, the soviets will not feel safe until the moment when they think that most of the worlds agrees with that ideology, or until they fully control them. So the United States has to be prepared to deal with soviet expansion, it has to be prepared for the soviets to continually be testing the limits of what the west is willing to do. The third one, and i have to say, still, when i read georges writings all these years later im amazed at his ability to look for backwards and forwards. He wrote, very perceptive louis, that the problem with the soviet system is that while the United States in the british will come out of the Second World War feeling triumphant, the soviets will come out despite being the great pictures of the war, they will come out of the war with their paranoia vastly increased. He argued that the problem that the soviet union had was not so much its geopolitical one that but the problem that it had is that system fundamentally doesnt work in peacetime. It was not working in the 1930s and once Economic Conditions of the post war world came back, the Economic Conditions of the soviet union would not work in the 19 fifties and 1960s either. Nevertheless, he argued, because the soviets came out of the world war so paranoid and because they would have the balance of military power in their hands, any military attempt by the United States or Great Britain to force the russians into doing something that they dont want to do will be met with force. So if the United States want to try to push the soviets around europe, they have to expect that its going to have to be done with full military force in place. And that, the United States cant do. So his argument, later becomes known as the containment doctrine, his argument is that what the United States should do is try to limit soviet influence as much as the United States can, in places where you can do so relatively cheap. Contain the soviet union and allow the internal contradiction of the soviet union to work against it. Wait for the soviet people themselves to realize that this system is not workable. And he was aware that this could take decades to achieve. So what hes arguing to truman is, patients, build up the west, in effect, he is arguing for creating a bipolar world, one poll led by the United States and one poll led by the soviet union. And what he wants to do is there for a build up democratic systems in western europe in the post war world and later, of course, to build up through the Marshall Plan, the economies of the west as well and if that means shutting the soviets out of the system that is an outcome that is perfectly acceptable, to kennen. The litmus test here is how it will happen on poland, what will they want to do on poland . If the soviets push for an expensive poland, pushed further to the west, and if they insist on shutting the democratic polish government, the polish government in exile, the group called the london poles, if they exist on excluding them, then those will be indications that the soviets are willing to play hardball. If the soviets are willing to open up poland for elections, that is a different case. The question that kennen asks truman is if they dont do what we want them to do, what choices the United States really have on poland . In other words, if poland is the reason for britain and france to go to war is it a reason for the United States to go to war with the soviet union in 1945 . And all four of the men in this photograph have the same answer. No, it is not. One more thing about pot stand that to me was endlessly fascinating, and i can talk about it more in the question and answer if anybody is interested. I am always interested in this question. I am trained as a social historian not to think that individuals are terribly important to the overall course of history. That it is larger patterns and larger structures that are more important than individualizations and individual bits of contingency. Most of the time, and potsdam offers fascinating insights here. Truman became president upon fdrs death in april, he brings a new National Security team in with him, including a new secretary of state in james burns. And in the middle of the potsdam conference, the votes have been tabulated in the first British Elections since the mid 19 thirties. To everyones tremendous shock, the labour party led by this man on the left, thoroughly defeats Winston Churchills conservatives. So the conference takes a break in the middle. The british go back to london in order to monitor the results of the election, famously at number 10 downing street they take down the battle maps of western europe and put up the electoral maps to try and figure on how things are going. One and athlete winds. How much of the policies change when were atley and truman replace fdr in churchill . In my view, and the people at the time, reading a very much. The british Prime Minister was very attentive to this. Eaton was very worried because the foreign minister had very little experience in foreign affairs. One eaton was very concerned that they were going to flood this up and mess of britains position. At the end, he writes in his diary, in a very long, detailed and thoughtful explanation, that the tone might have been a little different, but actually end atley atley and bevin did the same things that he and churchill had done because they were in the same strategic position of not having any money. The United States is going to do something a little bit different, truman and roosevelt before him had already planned on this. Unlike Woodrow Wilson in 1919, who went in trying to win with the power of ideas, truman wanted to come in with a bunch of really good cards at his hand. One of them is having the United Nations charter already signed before truman went to potsdam. That occurs here as you can see, in late june of 1945. And with the United States senate having already approved american membership. So there will be no fight over the league of nations like there was in 1919. The difference of course, is at this time the United States had one of five Security Council vetoes, so that the un, unlike the league of nations, can never do harm to the United States because it has that u. S. Security council veto. The United States also wanted to make sure that the conference was held in san francisco, and that the International Request headquarters of the United States would be built on the east side of new york city. The United States also created monetary institutions that are today known as the Bretton Woods agreements. They include what became the world bank. They include currency set to the u. S. Dollar as backed by american gold, so the Exchange Rates are fixed. They include really the United States taking control of the Global Economy and moving it from london to new york. John maynard keynes in the middle, probably the most famous economist of his age, called this system a swindle. That if he knew the United States was using its military power and its diplomatic power to undercut britains economic power, but he was also perfectly aware that britain had no choice. Famously, he said the britain could not possibly police have the world while remaining in debts to the other half. The officials of the bank of england, who were one also, said this was the only thing worse than losing the war, because under the system, all of the British Empire, india, singapore all of it, would have to be open to the United States unfair and equal traits terms, which in effect, meant the end of the British Empire at some point. The irony here is that britain being the least powerful of the big three, ended up making very similar arguments that they rejected when france made them in 1919. In effect, we know we are out of money, we know we do not have the military power we once had, but we sacrificed and blood on the battlefield with. You isnt that worth something . They reject that argument when the french make it in 1919. The u. S. And the soviets rejected when the british make it in 1945. Keynes is another one of these perceptive people able to look backwards and forwards. He believes that the Economic Conditions that the Second World War had created might well leads to another Great Depression that is largely averted by the Marshall Plan and some good luck and some very good thinking by european economists. But he also was aware that this likely means the end of Great Britain as a great power, and it likely means the end of the imperial system as the british had known it. The last card in trumans hand eye that i want to talk about is, of course, the atomic bomb that is detonated in new mexico as the potsdam conference is going on. The american secretary of war slipstream in a note, a poorly coated note that lets him know how successful it has been. And how far away the explosion could be heard and how far away it could be seen. Truman got that note, he was perfectly well aware. They had discussed what they would do, how they would present it to the soviets, how they would open this discussion. The decision that they made was that truman would go up to stalin after the end of one of the sessions, and mention it without using the word atomic, and to mention in as lowkey away as it was possible to do. Now, with truman and churchill did not know, what nobody on the western side new, is that the soviets also knew how close the United States was to an atomic bomb. They too had to discussed how stalin should respond if churchill and truman mentioned the atomic bomb, mentioned the success of the experiments to him. They had agreed that he would try to downplay it as much as possible and he would try to make it seem as though he did not fully understand the consequences of what they were saying. And to me, this is another thing that as a historian, is very interesting. I would have thought that everybody would remember that moment, when truman pulled stolen aside, because everybody knew that it was coming. In fact, peoples historical recollections do not overlap terribly well, which i find very interesting. The consensus seems to be the truman mentioned the new super weapon that the United States had developed, avoiding the term atomic. Stolen seeing something like, that is good, we will use it against a pen, or that is good, that is wonderful and walking away. Truman churchill both noted in the recollection recollections of this, that they thought the stolen had no idea what it just been told to him. Again, we know that is not true. As it turns out, the conversation that they had just had was a conversation over the future of poland that have had some pretty tense exchanges. Stolen red that, as he told one of his advisers, as atomic blackmail. So the nuclear age is just about to begin. Truman made the decision that the United States should not drop the bomb over here shear motion hiroshima until he, truman, was back at sea on his way back to the United States. He wanted to literally be at sea when it was first used. He wanted to be in a position where he would not have to discuss this with stalin in. Anyway them. What did they decide at potsdam . One thing that they decided was the boundaries of germany. They divide three countries. They break three countries into pieces here. Its an afterthought. It is almost done by lower level officials, one of these decisions is made by a colonel back in washington d. C. Who later became the secretary of state. His decision is to divide the Korean Peninsula into. They also decides to divide the french colony of indochina into two. What they do here in germany is to break germany, first what they will do, is break it into three occupations owns. Soviet, british american, and french zone. And you can see here from the map, the french zone is carved out of the american zone. That is the soviets are okay with the french having their own zone of occupation, as long as its not coming out of the soviet zone. The same thing will happen here with berlin. And the decision that they reach is that each side will take out or put in to its zone whatever it wants. And the reason they are doing this is the American Fear that if germany is treated as a single unit, if its treated as a single thing for occupation reasons, then the soviets will simply take advantage to take everything they can out of germany, forcing the United States and Great Britain to put money into germany. So in effect, the u. S. Will be putting resources into germany while the soviets take them out. This is exactly the nightmare scenario that burns thought out in 1919, it is a scenario that he does not want to see repeated here in 1945. They dont envision at this point, that this will be come to different states. We know now, of course, that they do. With the United States, britain and france putting resources into the western zone of germany and the soviets taking everything they can find that is not nail down out of the eastern sector. And this of course, those of you in germany or those of you who have traveled to germany, will know this remains an issue inside germany, where the Economic Development of the east is still lagging behind. The west nevertheless, United States gets what it wants. It gets a system where it doesnt have to put money into a reparation scheme while the soviets pull those resources out. The second decision that they make and its mostly a soviet one that the United States has to acquiescent as it is happening. A decision thats made this times that rather than draw lines around countries exclusively, but the red army will do is forced people to move into their new ethnic areas. If you are german living in what will become poland, the red army will encourage you to leave. This is going to happen to millions and millions of people. At potsdam, the United States knows that the soviet union is doing this. They know that in that shaded area that you see becomes part of poland, they are taking the lead lutheran churches, sacrilege in this catholic churches. Putting a polish ones. For all intents and purposes they are taking those regions and making it polish. They are doing it throughout the map of poland. The soviets expectation is this is the way youre going to end the problem of what to do with displaced persons and what to do with the boundary lines here. A big problem is what to do with jewish survivors of the concentration camps. This of course will lead into the decision to see palestine is a solution. But here in potsdam, i was quite surprised by what they dont talk about. The main thing they dont talk about is what to do with these jews and what to do with the future of palestine. The key thing, i think for the people in 1945, the problem of germany have been solved as they and stood it. The occupation lines had been the side even though that would give them an of ability to monitor germany, the size of germany has made smaller, mostly ill show you that in just a second. Also, the ability to make sure that the economics of germany are going to work at least in the western zone in the way United States and britain want them to work. The people that paid the price are the polls. This map here shows what became poland sliding to the west. The map that is on the left is the dark part of that map, is the polish boundary of 1921 at the end of world war one. The light color that is there, you can see the line that is built there is a new poll and that is drawn in 1945. Supposedly churchill demonstrated the set yalta with three match sticks. A phrase that has been used every senses that colin slides to the west. The east is taken away from poland which was done ethnically, had a large ethnic population of polish people. The part of east russia, the heartland of all germany becomes part of poland. The city of becomes the city of pose nine. As poland begins to move to the west. Americans are where thats not a lot of things they can do about. It i had put some stake in the ability of democratic government and pull into at least decide what kind of government poland would have. It becomes perfectly obvious at the potsdam conference that the soviets had no intention of allowing anything that would even remotely represents reelection. This one along with the atomic bomb. One of the two issues that really does begin to create difficulties and suspicions between the United States and the soviet union. Poland pays a price that remains under soviet dominance until the late i love with George Tennant had to say about this. He said i wish that instead of mumbling words of optimism that he would have the good judgment of bowing his head in silence we had help to say from our enemies and who we cannot say from our friends. Arthur, the American Ambassador of poland wrote a book this title. I saw poland betrayed. We can fast forward to a really remarkable world today in 2020, where both germany and poland are full members of nato, the european union, for members of the multilateral and international system. They didnt exactly design it at potsdam. They certainly would not have been surprised to have been very pleased with the outcome you see here. This is a reminder both that histories always moving, it is always changing, it is always dynamic. It is never done with us. It is always a factor in the way that we have to think about the past, present and future. The leaders of 1945 did not yet know the future that they were trying to create, i would argue. They wanted very much not to repeat the past. Thank you very much. I will be happy to take any questions that you have. Thank you, michael, for a wonderful presentation. If you have a question and have not added to the q a future, you can also add a question in the insert. First question is if truman needed information about yalta, why did he go to london and meet with churchill before going to potsdam . I dont think it would have been possible for truman to go to london. There were arguments that there was simply too much that human had to do in the United States. Too many people who had to meet, to many things you have to organize. It was the question of churchill coming to washington for roosevelts funeral. That wouldve been an opportunity for the United States and british leaders to sit down. He never did explain but when they churchill told his staff, im not going to washington. Were not doing that. When roosevelt, im sorry, when churchill decided not to come to the funeral, that opportunity for large gathering of the meeting of the minds would not have happened. I also think its true that james burns, a new secretary of state who is very close to truman at this point, they later have a rupture. Was trying to make sure that whatever truman did he did not get his information from the british, that it should come from american sources. Burns takes charge it was that yalta, so he was physically there, although he did not play a very important rolled. Roosevelt had that falling out. Its kind of a pattern in his life. There was no real opportunity to do that i think burns would have frowned upon the. Instead would burn status as he is the guy that ends up taking control and telling truman this is what i remember from yalta. This is what i remember that we agreed to do. All right. Our next question is from stan. President truman later expressed regret about decisions made at potsdam, especially in regards to poland . He did. In fact, in his major speech on the agreement to the American People right after he comes right out and says it. He says the polish part is the part of his most uncomfortable with. He in effect sister his advisers, there is nothing we could have done. The only way to force the soviets to do anything we have been to threaten them with military action and that is just not going to happen. It is not in the cars. Those of you who know from the movie paton, at least allegedly, that is what george patent was arguing. I had to threaten soviets with military action and force them to go back, prevent some border like this one from being created, but it is a, unrealistic, be not the child of the general to make those decisions. All right, our next question why did they not address the issue of jewish refugees . That is really hard. When you go to church crewmen churchills briefing books are in the archives. Its there at the truman library. You can see what he was. Reading the same exact book that he was reading. Two reasons. One is that palestine was still a british mandate at that point. Its still technically belong to Great Britain. If youre going to open up the issue of palestine, and you have to open up a whole lot of issues about the internal affairs of the great powers. I dont think anybody wanted to cross that line at that conference. The second thing, and its curious, when you read the initial reports, the liberation of the camps, the word jewish is not used very often. If you read dorothy thompson, Martha Gilmore and, the reports they sent back dont specifically refer to jews. Here is a sense, and im not really sure how much this is getting back to potsdam, but you suffering is no different than the suffering that the europeans were generally. It is something distinctive and unique. To germans great credit and churchills great credit, they will get to that reality. Truman, or harrison, to come to europe and write a report. The famous report that harrison writes package from. And we are treating the jews the same way the nazis did except where not killing them. In other words, we are keeping them in these camps. They had an epiphany later to their credit. But i think largely, it was the unwillingness of truman to open up or certainly to open up as what they saw internal affairs of the great powers to this conference. Palestine was considered part of the internal affairs of Great Britain. All right. Our next question is from ian. It seems that the true take away for a Great Power Competition from potsdam is force or threat of force decides diplomacy. Would you agree . Great old expression that the plumber sees the art of thing until you can find a really big rock. We use a very simplified thing where i teach. We call it the dine. Diplomacy information military and economics. Ideally, you want all those things to function together. Military forces is always there. The official model of where i work is not to prepare for war but to prepare for peace. He ultimate idea of where work is to teach senior military officers the ways that one can use military force and exactly the way you are to articulating. That is the ideal but it doesnt always work out that way. I think what we are seeing in the 24 century our states like russia and china who are using information and in the chinese case, economics in place of military force to support their diplomacy. This is been part of the challenge that i think were dealing with in the 24 century. The stool of state craft are different in the 24 century than they were in 1945. This i think is a real challenge Going Forward for western societies, which i think bad actors around the world have figured out is the way to explode western societies because of their openness. I would say all of those four factors for diplomacy, information, military and economics were together. Military force, folks i work for will say, it is the ultimate thing you want to hold back. Without military power, you dont have a plan b with anything, but it should never be plan a. We should always let the others work their way up first. All right. Our next question comes from james. You state that the allies of the potsdam or obstinacy and wynton being celebratory, but surely if this was true, the positive and collaborative relations between them rapidly disappeared. They did not . What specific important agreements were made at potsdam rather than being deferred as the word to the councils of ministers because they could not agree on much of potsdam . The other thing about potsdam that truman remembered, that truman wanted to avoid was a messy and bitter fight that wilson had with the senate over the treaty of versailles in the league of nations. Potsdam does not produce a treaty. For that reason, while they are sort of memoirs and memorandum of each of these discussions, they do not produce a formal treaty. That is 100 percent by design. The council of Foreign Ministers as you mentioned, they are there to kind of massage the process Going Forward. The specific points of disagreement for the United States especially our soviet treatment of and the blackout of an ability of american and british officials to move through the soviet zone of germany. The idea to the americans, the notion that the soviets are not playing fair. They are not letting us come into the zone. They are treating it as two countries when we are supposed to be treating it as one managed by the four powers. For the soviets, its the use of Nuclear Bombs over nagasaki and the timing of the way truman did it, so there is an opportunity for a negotiation or discussion about whats going to go forward, and the third issue that is really of great concern to everybody is the chinese civil war that is ongoing at the same time. If you think of the world is a buy polar sylvia lead poll and another american led poll, the future of chinas going to be incredibly important as it remains so today. Those are the three issues that emerge very quickly. Others of course emerge as well. I think i would still hold to the fact that they left potsdam. Everybody left a record of it at the time. Everybody that wrote something down in august 1945, all wrote, we understand this is not going to be our champion and strawberries, but i think we can work with these guys. This can work. By 47, even late 46, it started to change. I think we have time for a few more questions. The next question is from philip. How long did it take for president truman to learn of the suspense of the nuclear bomb in new mexico. Until stalin and churchill or was it . I was churchill who was with human at that point. One of the first briefings he gets after being sworn into president hes briefed about the Manhattan Project. He stole that potsdam it worked. The memo is if any soviet saw that memo they would understand what it said. It was the most poorly coated thing in all the years of coating archives have ever seen. The americans didnt think they had to be cold all that much because they do not think the soviets would understand it even if it were encoded. What should we do about this and then decided to go ahead with the plan that they had gotten. It all happens very quickly. The key thing to me is that the americans didnt think the soviets had fully grasped what happened. inaudible it is something that greatly increases the paranoia all right. Our last question comes from clare. How much influence do you think burns had on truman, the media thinking that potsdam and the earliest days of the merchant cold war . I think burns is the second most important person that truman was talking to. Truman revered george marshall, though. George marshall was the first. The cabinet and the governorship, although the governorship comes after. Governor south carolina. He knows everybody. He knows where the bodies are buried. He knows how to get things moved through various branches of government. Everybody 1944 thought that burns was going to be vice president. If that had happened, when roosevelt died burns would have been president. Hes the guy whispering instruments ear. Legend goes that he is the last person in washington to stop calling him harry and start calling him president truman, because they knew each other so well. They hated each other so much and they had this in formality between them. On the trip back from potsdam with a bottle of bourbon every day, talking about things every single day. The relationship was really close. It will break down quickly. Burns is the most important voice talking to truman. He had been at yalta, tehran, the paris peace conference. Enormous influential person. Hes probably the most important person in 20th century American History that most americans dont know anything about, and he is just everywhere. Like truman never went to college, very much a self taught man, hes the last Supreme Court Justice Without a law degree. A very unpleasant guy, i should say. A very accomplished an interesting guy, but a die hard segregationist. In 1945, he is someone that truman is listening to along with marshall. With very close attention. Tonight, a look at the 100 nursery of womens suffrage. On august 18th 1920, tennessee became the 36th and last they needed to ratify the 19th amendment granting one in the right to vote. On the eve of the anniversary and future conversation hosted by the womens Suffrage Centennial commission with Hillary Clinton and librarian of congress. That will be followed by a form on the 19th amendment hosted including remarks by nancy pelosi and former secretary of state, condoleezza rice. Watch tonight beginning at eight eastern. Enjoy American History tv this week and every weekend on cspan three. The u. S. Dropped an atomic bombs on japanese cities of hiroshima and nagasaki 75 years ago the soggiest. Japans surrendered shortly afterwards and angled were to. Up next on the presidency, and acacia and director marc adams shows items in the hairiest truman president ial library and museum collection