If the governments of the world stumbled into a global conflict, they also stumbled through it. Leaders rose and fell, enemies became friends, friends became burdens, and agendas mutated. The most consistent trait of international relations was inconsistency. Of the principle political figures in the war, only Joseph Stalin and CHIANG KAI-SHEK remained in power from beginning to end. Half the Axis states eventually joined the Allies. And the Allies did not have a common war aim until 1943.
As illustrated below, few of the war’s major political events were premeditated. Most were reactions to changing military conditions, and many created more problems than they resolved. Listed in chronological order, the following acts and conferences did more than any other to change the political landscape of the war and to demonstrate the tenuous unity within alliances.
1. DESTROYERS-FOR-BASES (SEPTEMBER 2, 1940)
On May 15, 1940, just five days into office, with France collapsing under blitzkrieg by the hour, Winston Churchill sent his first telegram as Britain’s prime minister to Franklin D. Roosevelt. Hardly cordial, Churchill was asking for assistance—quite a bit of assistance.
He asked for a gift of “forty or fifty of your older destroyers,” several hundred of the “latest types of aircraft,” plus antiaircraft guns, steel, and a U.S. military presence in neutral Ireland to dissuade German paratroop drops. Lastly, Churchill stated, “I am looking to you to keep the Japanese quiet in the Pacific.”5
More symbolic than functional, an archaic U S. destroyer lumbers across the Atlantic on its way to the Royal Navy as part of the destroyers-for-bases deal.
Upon receiving these hefty requests, the president was cool but conciliatory. Roosevelt said he would look into the Irish proposal. He reminded Churchill that Britain was free to purchase all the steel and weapons it could afford. As for the Japanese, Roosevelt believed the concentration of U.S. warships at PEARL HARBOR was an adequate deterrent.6
Giving away U.S. destroyers required congressional approval, an unlikely event considering the heavy isolationist sentiment throughout the country. Churchill repeated the request several times in the following weeks, becoming insistent after France fell and Germany suddenly acquired its submarine bases.
In desperation, Churchill offered to lease British naval and air bases in the Caribbean and Newfoundland, free of charge, for ninety-nine years. Roosevelt accepted, as the transaction did not directly violate strict U.S. neutrality laws. The deal was officially settled in September, and English ports began receiving a handful of antiquated sub hunters.
The warships made a marginal difference, but the trade was monumental. The destroyers-for-bases deal was the first measurable step the United States took against twenty years of neutrality and the first successful move by Churchill to tie British and American fates together.7
The destroyers Britain received were not exactly state of the art. Some of the newest ships were built in 1917.
2. TRIPARTITE PACT (SEPTEMBER 27, 1940)
It seemed like a good idea at the time. For more than a year, Hitler advocated a three-way alliance between Berlin, Rome, and Tokyo. By publicly declaring the unity of the three great military powers, promising to come to each other’s aid if attacked, Hitler believed he could intimidate the United States into staying out of Europe.
The Japanese government, however, was not so confident. One cabinet held over seventy meetings on the issue with no settlement. The navy opposed joining the alliance, as did the emperor, fearing it would anger the United States into war. But when Matsuoka Yosuke became foreign minister, the pact became reality. A brash, eccentric, but charismatic figure, he proclaimed the agreement to be the one and only way to assure peace. “If you stand firm and start hitting back,” he reasoned, “the American will know he is talking to a man.”8
In response, the United States placed a scrap-metal embargo on “the man,” and public opinion began to equate the empire with the Third Reich. Rather than an irresistible force, the pact became an immovable obstacle to compromise between the United States and Japan.9
Matsuoka Yosuke had reason to believe he understood Americans. He had lived in the United States for a decade and was a graduate of the University of Oregon.
3. LEND-LEASE (MARCH 11, 1941)
Britain was nearly bankrupt. It was also fighting Germany almost on its own. President Roosevelt struggled to think of a way to help without sending troops overseas, without loaning money, and without doing as Joseph Kennedy Sr., Charles Lindbergh, Robert E. Wood (head of Sears, Roebuck), and others were suggesting—broker a peace with Hitler.10
Roosevelt came up with an idea while vacationing in the Caribbean, where his destroyers-for-bases trade bore fruit. The United States would provide Britain with the weapons and material required to fight on—guns, warships, transports, tanks—and when the war was over, repayment would be made in kind. While an isolationist Congress was in recess, Roosevelt presented the concept to the American public in his ARSENAL FOR DEMOCRACY radio address, an act he equated with lending a neighbor a hose when his house was on fire. Response was overwhelmingly in favor, which helped pass the bill despite bitter congressional debates.
Over the next three years, the United States allocated more than fifty billion dollars in goods and services to forty countries (equivalent to eight hundred billion in 2005 dollars). Britain received nearly half. The Soviet Union, joining the Allies later in 1941, received a quarter of the take, amounting to about 7 percent of what the Soviets produced on their own. Third and fourth in line were Free France and Nationalist China.
U.S. fighter planes are readied for shipment. Lend-Lease provided some forty Allied nations with money and materials for war.
Though boosting American industry to new heights and arguably saving Britain from destruction, Lend-Lease became yet another seed of discontent. Recipients perpetually demanded more, especially Stalin and CHIANG KAI-SHEK. Americans worried they were enabling monarchies and dictatorships to grow even stronger. Harry Truman did little to settle the issue when he shut off the valve the very moment Japan surrendered.11
Reportedly, upon hearing that the U.S. Congress passed Lend-Lease, Winston Churchill actually danced.
4. ATLANTIC CHARTER (AUGUST 9, 1941)
On a ship off Newfoundland, in their first face-to-face meeting as heads of state, Roosevelt and Churchill negotiated a set of “common principles.” With eight brief points, the document (christened “the Atlantic Charter” by the London press) promoted self-determination, free trade, labor rights, civil rights, freedom of the high seas, and international disarmament. It also condemned border changes by coercion and pledged “the final destruction of the Nazi tyranny.” Issued as a press release, it was intended to be a simple statement of unity against fascism. Others interpreted it as a definitive road map for the postwar world.
Within a month Churchill was backtracking. He assured Parliament that “disarmament” meant Germany and Japan, with the British military remaining dominant far into the postwar period. On self-determination he was most adamant. An ardent imperialist, he emphasized that the provision only applied to Europe, not to British colonies. His hypocrisy was not lost on Burmese, Indians, South Africans, and others living under the Union Jack. Yet the prime minister was quite ready to defend self-determination when Stalin later insisted on maintaining Soviet control over Poland, adding that “President Roosevelt holds this view as strongly as I do.”12
Yet neither Roosevelt nor Churchill followed the charter closely. Generally repulsed by Britain’s grip on old colonies, Roosevelt was more apt to recognize Soviet dominion over the Poles, the Baltic states, and Ukraine. When asked in 1944 if self-determination no longer applied to Europe, Roosevelt replied that the Atlantic Charter was not a binding treaty but merely a press release, written on “just some scraps of paper.”13
President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Prime Minister Winston Churchill issued the Atlantic Charter after a conference aboard USS Augusta at Placentia Bay, Newfoundland, on August 9, 1941.
But in 1941, the charter meant far more in one respect. It was the first publicly declared statement between a belligerent and a neutral that they held the same war aims and were committed to defeating the Third Reich.
The Atlantic Charter would live on after the war as the foundation of the charter of the United Nations.
5. GERMAN DECLARATION OF WAR ON THE UNITED STATES (DECEMBER 11, 1941)
It was not his brightest act. Days after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hitler declared war on the United States, greatly simplifying U.S. entry into a European war.
The declaration was brief, less than a page long, and was clearly written without Hitler’s direct input. Emphasis was on high-seas law, about which he knew very little. The text stated, “Vessels of the American Navy, since early September 1941, have systematically attacked German naval forces…Germany for her part has always strictly observed the rules of international law in her dealings with the United States throughout the present war.”14
Though Hitler underestimated the military and industrial potential of the United States and overestimated Japan’s chances of keeping American forces in the Pacific, he was not eager to invite yet another enemy into the fray. For years he had privately stated his desire to keep the United States out of the war. His ideal scenario involved Japan attacking the Soviet Union, with the Americans staying neutral. Yet instead of having a two-front war against Stalin, Hitler unilaterally created one against himself.
In his speech to the Reichstag announcing Germany’s declaration of war on the United States, Hitler stated, “A historical revision on a unique scale has been imposed on us by the Creator.”
6. WANNSEE CONFERENCE (JANUARY 20, 1942)
Nazi persecution of the Jews had not been systematic up to 1942. Officials initially expelled Jews from homes, businesses, and cities in an attempt to make areas “Jew free.” Emigration was also encouraged. By 1940, nearly half of Germany’s 500,000 Jews had left for Britain, the United States, Palestine, and elsewhere.
When the Reich overran areas with large “non-Aryan” populations, the solution was to contain the Jews in ghettos, often denying them food. Privation began to kill hundreds, then thousands, but the method was imprecise and slow. In the invasion of the Soviet Union, the Germans initiated use of Einsatzgruppen, or “Special Groups,” roaming death squads that liquidated Jews by mass shootings. By the end of 1941, at least one million Jews had died, yet no systematic plan for annihilation was yet in place.
Then Adolf Eichmann, head of Germany’s Race and Resettlement Office, called an assembly of fifteen administrators to the wealthy Berlin suburb of Wannsee. Their task was to coordinate a “final solution” to the Jewish problem.
In less than two hours, the officials outlined a new program, whereby Europe’s Jews would be collected and transported to special sites in the east, under the pretense that they were to be used as forced labor. Meeting minutes contained no references to killing, but the “laborers” were to include infants and the elderly. Destination points were a select few concentration camps, which were at that moment being fitted with gas chambers.15
Wannsee was the first instance where genocide became official Nazi policy. Documentation from the conference stands as the most damning evidence to date that the Holocaust had been directed by the highest levels of the Third Reich. By all indications, the procedure was effectively implemented. Half of all Jews killed in the Holocaust died in a handful of death camps.16
Among the potential “labor pools” cited in the Wannsee briefing minutes was Great Britain, with an estimated 330,000 Jews.
7. “UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER”: THE CASABLANCA CONFERENCE (JANUARY 14–24, 1943)
On the last day of a long summit, Roosevelt and Churchill were holding a press conference in sunny Casablanca. Stalin declined to attend the summit, wanting instead to monitor events at STALINGRAD. The president and prime minister were reviewing the high-level issues of their meetings, such as the need for a unified French resistance. A photo op captured the proud but politically dim Gen. Henri Giraud (whom Churchill and Roosevelt tolerated) shaking the hand of ego-maniacal Gen. Charles de Gaulle (whom they loathed), suggesting that the French problem had been solved. It hadn’t.
The rest of the conference had gone generally well. The United States agreed to join Britain in a combined bomber offensive on German targets and affirmed its “Germany First” commitment. The British tacitly agreed to a cross-channel attack sometime in 1944.
As the press conference was about to conclude, Roosevelt uttered a phrase that took Churchill and journalists by surprise. He began to speak of Civil War icon Ulysses S. Grant and his famous nickname, “and the next thing I knew,” Roosevelt later recalled, “I had said it.”17
Unconditional surrender. No peace talks. No negotiating.
At Casablanca, Roosevelt and Churchill also tried to unite French forces under Henri Giraud (far left) with Charles de Gaulle (second from right).
A popular myth emerged that the president’s statement was a slip of the tongue, that he neither desired it as a war aim nor discussed the idea with others. In reality, Roosevelt’s and Churchill’s cabinets had already debated the issue and agreed to it. But Roosevelt gave the prime minister no warning that he was going to unveil the policy at that time.18
From that day forward, a full fifteen months after the United States had joined in the war, the Allies had a finite, definable, and shared goal.19
For unknown reasons, both Roosevelt and Churchill were extremely ill for a month after Casablanca.
8. THE TEHRAN CONFERENCE (NOVEMBER 28–DECEMBER 1, 1943)
It was the first conference of “the Big Three” and the first ever meeting between an American president and a Soviet leader. Topics were kept at a high level, with specifics to be laid out in future meetings. Stalin agreed to enter the war against Japan sometime after the war in Europe reached a favorable end. Roosevelt outlined an intent to retake Burma.
On points of contention, the odd man out was routinely Churchill. He failed to convince his associates of pulling Turkey into the war. He also argued unsuccessfully for a greater commitment to a Balkan campaign (similar to a plan he had espoused during World War I) or a renewed effort to reach Germany through Italy. On several occasions he recommended delaying the invasion of France beyond the target of mid-1944, fearing a replay of Dunkirk and DIEPPE. Roosevelt and Stalin were jointly opposed. And so went most of the meetings.20
At Tehran, the Big Three—Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin—finalized plans for a two-front assault on Germany and the Soviet Union’s later commitment against Japan in the Pacific.
On his impression of Stalin, Roosevelt optimistically observed, “I believe that we are going to get along very well with him and the Russian people—very well indeed.” Churchill, sensing his less-than-equal status at the conference, equated the situation with being a “poor little English donkey” stuck between a Russian bear and an American buffalo.21
Churchill hosted a lavish dinner on the third night of the conference, which happened to be his sixty-ninth birthday. When Stalin arrived, Churchill welcomed his guest with a warm greeting and an outstretched hand. Stalin ignored him.
9. THE YALTA CONFERENCE (FEBRUARY 4–11, 1945)
Roosevelt came to the Crimea with two goals in mind: to ensure the defeat of Japan and to create the foundation of a United Nations. Both objectives, he believed, required the Soviet Union.
Stalin again pledged to fight the Japanese Empire, committing the Red Army to attack Manchuria three months after peace in Europe. In exchange, the Soviet leader demanded the Kurile Islands and the southern half of Sakhalin Island. On the United Nations, Stalin agreed to Soviet participation, provided the Soviet Union had sixteen seats, one for each Soviet state plus the USSR as a whole. Roosevelt and Churchill talked him down to three.
All agreed that Germany and Austria would be divided, demilitarized, and de-Nazified. Stalin suggested taking cash reparations from Germany, which would be split among the Big Three. Remembering how reparations had ruined the Treaty of Versailles, Churchill rejected the idea.
Most of the conference was spent on Poland, its borders, and its government. Stalin had already installed a provisional government, one very sympathetic to Soviet interests. Yet he promised to uphold the Declaration of Liberated Europe, forged earlier at the Yalta conference, which guaranteed “the right of all peoples to choose the form of government under which they will live.”22
Historians commonly consider the conference to be “Year Zero” of the cold war, when a visibly dying Roosevelt and a politically compromised Churchill naively gave in to a land-hungry Stalin. In reality, it was the high point of Allied cooperation, when all three participants were naive and optimistic, incapable of foreseeing how future events—namely the death of an enemy and the detonation of an atomic device—could destroy what Yalta had achieved.23
The Big Three met for the last time at Yalta. Roosevelt had only two months to live. In four months, Churchill was out of power.
In the interest of security, transcripts from the Yalta Conference were not made public until 1947.
10. HITLER’S SUDDEN DEPARTURE (APRIL 30, 1945)
Undoubtedly, nothing united the Allies as much as Adolf Hitler. By striking fear among his rivals, the German Führer drove together devout ideological enemies. On April 30, 1945, that unifying force ceased to exist. Trapped in his Berlin bunker with the Red Army only blocks away, Hitler decided to take his own life, stating that he “preferred death to cowardly abdication or even capitulation.”24
As time would prove, Hitler’s decision meant the end of Allied cooperation. Confirming the impact of the Führer, Germany became the epicenter of East-West hostilities for more than forty years. No other location was remotely as divisive—not Japan, not Italy, not even Poland—where a tacit gentlemen’s agreement assured Soviet domination. In blasting a hole through the back of his head, Hitler arguably fired the first shot of the cold war. “Now he’s done it, the bastard,” said Stalin upon hearing the news of the warlord’s suicide. “Too bad he could not have been taken alive.”25
Fearing Hitler’s corpse would become a rallying point for future Nazi uprisings, the Soviets took his charred remains from the Berlin Chancellery garden on May 2, 1945, and secretly transported them to Moscow. The Soviet government waited until 1968 before admitting they had taken the body.