Interview Transcripts: The Potsdam Conference

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Historian Walter LaFeber on the Potsdam Conference

Truman recorded in a letter just before he went to Potsdam, he said, "I hate to make this trip." He did not want to go to Potsdam, but then he added this letter that, "If we go, we must win." He clearly was insecure, as it was to be understandable since he was to meet Stalin and Churchill for the first time. When he got to Potsdam, he met Stalin. The two got along rather well and, ah, Truman said, "I think I can do business with Stalin." Ah, "He's very honest, but he's also smart as hell," is the way Truman described his initial impressions of Stalin. Truman was very uncomfortable at Potsdam until apparently July 17th. He had been there several days and then that day he received news that the atomic device that had been exploded in New Mexico had worked and that he was going to have an atomic bomb to use in several weeks on the Japanese. Stimson, who was at Potsdam with Truman, immediately recorded in his diary that President appeared to be "all pepped up". And Churchill later said that Truman, once he heard the news that the atomic bomb worked, was, quote, "a changed man". It was quite clear to Truman now that he had, as he would later say, "an ace in the hole and an ace showing." That is to say, the ace in the hole was a atomic bomb; the ace showing was American economic and military power. And he was going to use these and he was going to use them particularly for two things that he wanted out of Stalin at Potsdam. And he became very aggressive at Potsdam now. The insecurity changed to a very interesting kind of aggressiveness. The first that he wanted from Stalin was an agreement on Germany that essentially would prevent the Russians from taking industrial goods and resources out of Germany. Without Germany, the west of -- rest of Western Europe could not be rebuilt, Truman knew, and consequently it was important to keep the Russians out of Germany. He made a series of deals with Stalin that went back on the deals that Roosevelt and Stalin had made four months earlier the Yalta. Particularly, he went back on the deal that said that the Russians would be able to take $10 billion worth of reparations out of Germany. The $10 billion was not changed to a percentage. And a percentage of zero is zero, and that is essentially what the Russians got out of Western Germany. The second objective of Truman, once he found out that the atomic bomb was going to work, was to keep the Russians out of the war in Asia. Now this was a very touchy situation because the key to US policy in Asia had been for the last six months to get the Red Army involved in the invasion of Japan. Roosevelt had giving Stalin a lot of territory and a lot of rights in Asia at Yalta earlier in 1945 in order to get Stalin to come into the war so that not as many American soldiers would be killed in the invasion of Japan. Now Truman and Stimson understood, as Stimson put it, "We don't need the Russians any longer." With a bomb, they could end the war very quickly. They could do it without the Russians. And they could keep the Russians away from the Japanese home islands. And that's exactly what they sat out to do. So, as a consequence, Truman, as he said to Stimson, "I'm going to go in and I'm going to -- to get an open door in Manchuria." That is, "I'm going to make Stalin back down from what he got from Roosevelt. I'm going to force him to open up the ports in Manchuria to the United States and to other trading nations." And, as a consequence, when he finished dealing with Stalin on this, Truman came back to his -- to his rooms and said to Stimson, "I've just clenched the open door in Manchuria." That is to say, "I've made Stalin back down from a agreements that he had made with Roosevelt and now," he thought, "we would ...

About a week after the bomb had gone off in New Mexico and it was clear that Truman was going to have this weapon, Truman approached Stalin at the Potsdam conference and very carefully said to Stalin that he had this new weapon. Much to -- to Truman's, ah, dismay, Stalin was very passive in response and Truman did not know exactly how to interpret this. This was not the reaction that Truman clearly wanted from Stalin. What we know now is that Stalin knew exactly about the development of the bomb because of Soviet spies at Los Alamos in New Mexico. We also know that as soon as Stalin walked out of that room after the conversation with Truman, Stalin immediately got in touch with the man who was the director of the Soviet atomic bomb project and said that he must get to work and accelerate the project. This man immediately told Stalin that he didn't he enough room to expand Soviet labs, that the forests in the area where they were developing this project were too immense, at which point Stalin simply hung up the phone, picked it back up, dialed one of his military commanders and ordered two tank divisions immediately to go out to this area and clear away these forests. In other words, Stalin took this information that Truman has passed on to him very seriously.

I think Potsdam marks the point at which Truman and Stalin don't have a whole lot to say to each anymore. Their armies are essentially doing the talking. The Soviet army is occupying Eastern Europe and parts of Central Europe, moving into Germany. There American Army is driving towards Japan and the American Air Force is essentially go to bring Japan to its knees before the -- before the Russian army can get to the home islands. Consequently, what we find now is that the armies have essentially set up the diplomatic situation, and the question is, how do you negotiate the Russian armies out of Central and Eastern Europe? This is a question that Truman could never solve, not even with the atomic bomb. He could never figure out exactly how to play what Stimson called his "royal straight flush", the atomic bomb, how to play those cards in terms of getting what Truman wanted out of Stalin in Eastern Europe.