Whither the Big Three? (1946)

1

The Pittsburgh Press (September 16, 1946)

Whither the Big Three…
Close ties with Allies spurned by Russians during World War II

Stalin turned down invitation to parley of Roosevelt and Churchill at Casablanca
By Parker LaMoore, Scripps-Howard staff writer

Unity of the Big Three has been called the key to peace. What was the origin of the U.S.-British-Russian tieup and what did it lead to? The following is the first of a series of articles on the Big Three.

WASHINGTON – Democratic Senator Claude Pepper of Florida and other Russian apologists insist that if “Big Three unity” can be restored, the key to world peace will have been found.

So it seems in order to examine the history of this relationship, in an attempt to determine what made it tick, and how it happened to fall apart.

In January 1943, when President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Winston Churchill were planning their historic meeting at Casablanca, Josef Stalin was invited to meet with the heads of the other Allied states.

We had been sending lend-lease supplies to Russia. But no satisfactory contact existed between western Allied commanders and the Red Army, nor had either Mr. Roosevelt or Mr. Churchill ever met the head of the Russian government.

Declines invitation

Uncle Joe’s reply to the invitation was curt. He said he saw no reason for a meeting, that all the Allies had to do was to make up their minds to cross the Channel, “as you promised.”

His Fifth Columnists in the United States had implemented his desire for a Channel crossing by mass meetings urging a “second front.”

We had established a second front in North Africa at that time, were planning a third front in Italy, as all the world surmised, and were setting up a far-flung front of our own in the Pacific. But these activities were brushed aside.

That the United States was not yet prepared to invade France, and the British were unable to do so, and the possibility that a premature landing might be repelled at a heavy cost in American lives seem to have meant nothing to the American Communists, or their masters in the Kremlin.

Turn other cheek

However, Mr. Roosevelt and Mr. Churchill not only ignored Stalin’s Casablanca snub, but turned the other cheek.

In the communique issued after the meeting it was stated that “Premier Stalin was cordially invited to meet the President and Prime Minister, in which case the meeting would have been held much farther to the east. He was unable to leave Russia at this time on account of the great offensive which he himself as commander-in-chief is directing.”

Other statements were issued praising the accomplishments of the Red Armies.

But with Stalin still playing hard-to-get, Mr. Roosevelt and Mr. Churchill met again in August 1943, this time at Quebec, to be greeted the morning of their initial session by a demand in the Red Star, official Russian army newspaper, that the “second front” be established without further delay.

Invited in broadcast

Never during this period was there any hint from Russia that the Reds would help us in our war against Japan.

Diplomatic approaches having failed, Mr. Churchill resorted to a most unusual expedient to bring the Big Three into direct contact. In a broadcast from Quebec, he publicly invited Stalin to join him and the President for a personal conference. This was followed up by visits to Moscow by personal representatives of the two heads of state, urging such a meeting. Finally, Stalin agreed to a meeting at Teheran, a few miles from the Russian border.

This set the stage for a meeting to which can be traced many of the headaches plaguing the world today.

TOMORROW: The Tehran conference

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The Pittsburgh Press (September 17, 1946)

Whither the Big Three?
Russia took driver’s seat at Tehran talks

Appeasement of Reds figured in meeting
By Parker LaMoore, Scripps-Howard staff writer

WASHINGTON – The first meeting of the Big Three at Tehran convened in an atmosphere of Russian appeasement. Capt. Harry Butcher recorded in his diary that Elliott Roosevelt reported to Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower after the meeting that Russia had moved into the driver’s seat.

Whether that squares with Elliott’s memory now, or not, the record of the secret conference, as it has become known, supports that conclusion.

Premier Joseph Stalin was placated at the outset by a promise that the Western Allies would cross the Channel into France “not later than May.” (The Tehran conference adjourned December 1, 1943).

Spheres established

It was at Tehran, too, that Russian and British spheres of influence were established. It was understood the Soviet Union was to have a dominant role in Finland, Poland, Romania, Hungary and Czechoslovakia, with a primary but not an exclusive role in Yugoslavia. Russia made that role an exclusive one later by selling the United States and Britain on Marshal Tito, a Moscow-trained puppet.

Greece was to be a British sphere of influence, and Italy, with some participation by the United States, was to come under the British influence.

In seeking to take some of the curse out of this division of Europe between Russia and Britain, an inspired story at the time explained that “American interest of a limited nature was taken for granted in the countries in Western Europe, particularly those bordering on the Atlantic Ocean.” Presumably, this reference was to France and Portugal, for Spain was in the Allied doghouse.

Gave pledge to Iran

The Big Three signed an agreement, styled the Iran Declaration, which guaranteed the post-war independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity of Iran, long a scene of Russian-British rivalry, and then occupied by Russia, British and American troops.

Evacuation of these troops at the end of the war had been agreed on at Moscow in October by then Secretary of State Cordell Hull, Anthony Eden and V. M. Molotov. But Stalin himself signed the Iran Declaration, which Russia subsequently ignored, resulting in an appeal to the United Nations.

It was in return for Stalin’s signature, it is understood, that the United States and Britain agreed to support Russia’s claims to the Baltic States, Bessarabia and part of Finland.

These concessions were in direct conflict with that section of the Atlantic Charter which, speaking for the United States and Britain, declared: “They desire to see no territorial changes that do not accord with the freely expressed wishes of the people concerned… They respect the right of all peoples to choose the form of government under which they will hive.”

Ironic touch

As an ironic touch, the same document signed by the Big Three and a representative of Iran, contained an approving reference to the Atlantic Charter, “to which all four governments have continued to subscribe.”

Big Three unity had its inception at Tehran. And it was there that the Soviet Union first began to collect dividends from the western policy of Russian appeasement – the expense of the Baltic and Balkan states and Finland.

The next “Munich” was to be held at Yalta, in February 1945, when the war in Europe was practically in the bag.

NEXT: The meeting at Yalta.

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The Pittsburgh Press (September 18, 1946)

Whither the Big Three?
Stalin won big concessions in Asia at Yalta conference

But parley in Crimea won Red adherence to U.N. after granting of veto power
By Parker LaMoore, Scripps-Howard staff writer

WASHINGTON – “Big Three unity” was established at Tehran at the first meeting of Premier Josef Stalin with President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Winston Churchill.

At that meeting Russia gained approval of claims to the Baltic states (Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania), Bessarabia and part of Finland, and recognition that the Balkan states, with the exception of Greece, should constitute a Soviet sphere of influence.

Unity again prevailed at Yalta, February 4, 1945, when Stalin obtained important territorial and commercial concessions in the Far East which rivaled his European “conquests by concession.”

At both meetings the members of the Big Three solemnly pledged their continuing adherence to the principles of the Atlantic Charter, which had been divested of any real meaning by deals made at these meetings.

Wins veto right

On the constructive side, Yalta saw initial plans laid for the United Nations, to which Stalin agreed after getting three votes for Russia in the General Assembly plus establishment of the big power veto night.

It also was decided to divide Germany into occupational zones with policy to be coordinated by an Allied control commission.

Stalin’s political concessions at Yalta, however, were nullified subsequently by his breaking or ignoring agreements which did not fit in with Russia’s developing post-war program.

He conceded that the government Russia had set up in Poland should be broadened and made democratic, and that free and unfettered elections should be held for establishment of a representative government. This agreement has been broken. Poland today is under dictatorial government as a Russian satellite.

Got high price

It also was understood that Tito’s provisional government in Yugoslavia should be broadened by inclusion of representatives of the exiled Subasic government. This became a dead letter, too.

Russia’s one substantial concession was Stalin’s promise to enter the war against Japan after defeat of Germany. But the boss of the Kremlin exacted a high price for that.

Russian “rights” in Manchuria, lost to Japan in 1904, were restored; the Soviet Union was given a half interest in the operations of the old Chinese Eastern and South Manchuria Railroads; Port Arthur was to become a Russian naval base; the commercial port of Dairen was to be internationalized, and Russia’s “pre-eminent interests” there given recognition. The independence of Outer Mongolia was established.

Mr. Roosevelt and Mr. Churchill undertook to obtain Chiang Kai-Shek’s concurrence to these concessions.

In war six days

The Soviet Union also was given the Kurile Islands, the southern part of Sakhalin, and the islands adjacent to it. All of this was for six days’ participation in the war, as it turned out.

Terms of this secret agreement were not made public until a year after it had been effected.

President Roosevelt in his report to Congress on the Yalta meeting said: “It spells the end of the system of unilateral (one-sided) action and exclusive alliances and spheres of influence and balances of power and all the other expedients which have been tried for centuries and have failed.”

Sen. Claude Pepper (D-Florida) hailed the agreements “the greatest step toward lasting peace that ever has been taken.”

Democratic Sen. Burton K. Wheeler of Montana termed the understandings “a great victory for Stalin and for Russian imperialism.”

In any event, Big Three unity created at Tehran continued.

The next meeting of the heads of state was held at Potsdam, after the collapse of Hitlerism.

NEXT: Confusion at Potsdam.

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The Pittsburgh Press (September 19, 1946)

Whiter the Big Three?
Potsdam created confusion on subject of reparations

Russia has refused to abide by decision to treat Germany as economic unit
By Parker LaMoore, Scripps-Howard staff writer

WASHINGTON – Secret deals which subsequently plagued the organizing meeting of the United Nations at San Francisco featured the Big Three meeting at Yalta.

The Potsdam conference, when President Truman represented the United States at the third and last meeting of the Big Three, will become historic for the confusion it created on the subject of reparations.

Russia obtained new territorial concessions, including the city of Koenigsberg and the area adjacent to it. Poland, then rapidly taking form as a Soviet satellite, was given custody of the city of Danzig and a portion of East Prussia, to which she now claims permanent title.

Questions concerning Iran, the Dardanelles, administration of Italian colonies and Syria and Lebanon were raised, but were left unanswered, refuting the familiar contention that Big Three unity could dispose of such controversial issues.

Causes stalemate

It was agreed Germany should be treated as an economic unit during the period of occupation, to which end common policies would be established on mining and industrial production and allocations wages, prices and rationing, imports and exports, currency and banking, taxation, customs, agriculture, forestry and fishing.

Russia’s refusal to abide by this understanding has resulted in the present American-Russian stalemate on German policy.

Even more serious was the loose wording of the draft agreement relating to German reparations.

It was provided that Russia, the United States and Britain should obtain reparations from their respective occupational zones, and from “appropriate German external assets.” But no ceiling was placed on reparations, it was not stated what should constitute reparations and the term “appropriate” was not defined further.

Austria stripped

This folly was compounded by the action of the United States and the United Kingdom in renouncing any claim to “German foreign assets” in Bulgaria, Finland, Hungary, Romania and Eastern Austria. When the Germans invaded Austria, they look title to almost all of the capital equipment in that country. Taking advantage of the Potsdam understanding, Russia has declared such property, most of it stolen property, “German foreign assets,” and claimed it as reparations.

As a result, Eastern Austria is being stripped to the bone.

Reds don’t claim gold

Russia made one concession on reparations: She would not claim any gold captured by the American or British troops.

No mention was made of reparations claims against Italy or the other Axis co-belligerents. But Russia has filed claims against each of them. The claim of 100 million dollars from Italy has been approved by the Council of Foreign Ministers.

In their final communique, the Big Three made the pious declaration that it was “not the intention of the Allies to destroy or enslave the German people.” But it has been charged that there was a secret understanding prisoners of war could be used to repair damage in enemy-devastated areas.

Whatever the facts, a substantial part of the former German Army is held in virtual slavery, at forced labor – 388,000 by the British, more than three million by the Russians. The period of this servitude appears to be indefinite.

THE END.