CHAPTER 30
Although his significance in Britain has been overshadowed, by the spy ring known as the 'Cambridge Five', it would be difficult to overstate the importance of Alger Hiss to US politics during the Cold War. Hiss had been one of Roosevelt's key aides, tasked with creating structures for post-war international relations and in particular the United Nations. Although his guilt was not proved beyond doubt until previously secret cryptographic material was released in 1995, it had been clear, from the time of his conviction for perjury in 1950, that Hiss had been a spy for the Russians. His nemesis was the Republican congressman Richard Nixon, whose success in exposing Hiss took him to the Senate in 1950 and to the vice presidency in 1952. Hiss's innocence was an article of faith for a generation of liberal Americans with the curious reasoning that if they admitted his guilt – and that of other New Dealers like Harry Dexter White at the Treasury and Presidential Administrative Assistant Laughlin Curry – it would damage Roosevelt's political legacy. But it was the traitors who had done the damage, and the counter-attack opened the door to the excesses of the House Un-American Activities Committee and of Senator foe McCarthy.
One result of this polarisation of opinion was a rancorous controversy about the Yalta Conference in February 1945, attended by Hiss, when Poland was allegedly 'sold out' to the Soviet Union. Although Hiss only had a cameo role in The World at War episode entitled The Bomb, towards the end of the series, his interview was one of the longest and, in view of what we now know about him, is an important historical document. There are a few points of subtle mendacity, but more intriguing is his skill in emphasising that the agreements reached at Yalta were the best the Western Allies could hope for. Indeed they were – by 1945 the Red Army's presence had decided the fate of Eastern Europe. But it leaves open the question whether Roosevelt could have obtained a better deal for the Poles and others, if in 1943–44 he had been less keen on an accommodation with Stalin. Perhaps it does not matter now: it did, very much, in the early 1970s.
DR NOBLE FRANKLAND
"Wartime RAF navigator, post-war Director of the Imperial War Museum Britain went to war to defend the Polish frontiers and the war ended with Poland losing its freedom, its independence, and a lot of people their lives. This is the most tragic irony of the war. The reason isn't far to search – in order to stop Hitler the power needed was so enormous that it had to embrace everybody free of the Nazi creed, including in particular the Soviet Union. And it seems to me there is little doubt that Hitler would have won the Second World War unless the Soviet Union had been part of the Grand Alliance. That being so, the fate of Poland was sealed from that time on. The British and the Americans did their best to secure the Polish position but their efforts were of absolutely no avail.
ANTHONY EDEN
British Foreign Minister, Yalta participant
Roosevelt thought he could do more with Stalin than anybody else and in that I think he was probably mistaken, but it was difficult to get started on the things we wanted to discuss with Stalin. I was very anxious in our Moscow conference to start with the Polish business and [Cordell] Hull wanted to do the same thing. But Hull hadn't the power, he couldn't. I thought it was very strange of a Secretary of State, I didn't see why he couldn't do it, but anyhow we never really got started on Poland as I think we should have done then. Winston was there at the time and told me Roosevelt had said the Secretary wouldn't talk about it because it was political dynamite at home, and this multiplied the difficulties or delays, which I think was the misfortune of it.*77
AMBASSADOR W AVERELL HARRIMAN
President Roosevelt's Special Envoy to Europe, Yalta participant
Shortly after Tehran in early 1944, I talked about Poland more than any other single subject with Stalin because it was the issue which was symbolic of other things and in the winter he was very tough about it. I still wanted to agree with Roosevelt's objective of trying to come to an understanding. I became somewhat more concerned in the autumn of 1944 and then in the winter I pointed out that Europe would be in a very weakened condition; there'd be hunger and poverty unless we did more, our food would not be enough, we had to do something to get the wheels of industry going again, raw materials and so forth. I felt that Stalin had every intention of using Communist parties in Europe, I think he would have achieved it if it hadn't been for Truman's initiative and the remarkable cooperation that occurred, as a result of the Marshall Plan, among Britain and the Europeans.
ANTHONY EDEN
The Russians became more and more difficult over the Poles, more determined to get their way. And the tragic business of Warsaw, the failure to help the Poles fighting in Warsaw against the Germans, was the worst phase of the whole business and we were all really bitter about that. And we tried to do all we could, we even flew aircraft from Italy to try and fly in supplies to the unfortunate Poles, but the Russians would have none of it. They just wouldn't do it and one can say that cynically they allowed the Poles to be butchered rather than risk their people, or try to interfere with the process. It's a terrible story. That was where we met our worst difficulties. Churchill and I went to Moscow specially to try and make some progress with the Poles; we didn't get very far. And Warsaw really settled geographically the Polish question because after that the Russians had control and they were going to settle the frontiers the way they wanted; all we could do was to try here and there to get something better for the Poles. And then remained the question of the Polish internal government and that, I'm afraid, we were equally unsuccessful really about, in spite of all we tried to do. When we were in San Francisco, Molotov had sharp arguments with [US Secretary of State] Stettinius and I when the Russians arrested a number of Poles on what we thought the flimsiest of pretexts, merely because they wouldn't cooperate with their nominee. And what in fact happened was that the Russians imposed their nominees upon Poland by force. All that was a sad disappointment until the end of the war, but I cannot to this day see what more either we or the Americans could have done about the circumstances.
AMBASSADOR HARRIMAN
The Warsaw incident was a very great shock to all of us, part of it was a misunderstanding, the fact the Red Army got to the river and couldn't get across, and the Germans moved into two divisions. The Poles rose up without any agreement on the part of the Russians but it was utterly cruel that Stalin wouldn't even try to get supplies in, he refused to let our aeroplanes fly over and drop supplies for several weeks. And finally he did agree. I really had tough talks with the Russian government over Poland, of willingness to help the Poles. It played a role in all of our minds as to the heartlessness of the Russians. Stalin was very suspicious of the underground in Poland, which owed its allegiance to the Polish government in London. On several occasions later on he showed that he thought the partisans were working against the Red Army and against the people he wanted to see and control after the war was over.
CHARLES BOHLEN
US diplomat and Soviet expert, Yalta participant
The British had a record for what is known as spheres of influences and it's a very different thing for you to have spheres of influence, which are a tradition in your history. But overall it reflects the fact that you are a country without real minorities. We have a country that is full of minorities, we had Poles, Czechs, eastern Europeans represented in the United States and therefore it was not easy for us; we always opposed the idea of the spheres of influence. We finally had to come to accept that the Soviet Writ runs through all of the satellite areas up to the western edges of the Russian advance. We weren't a little premature in fixing these zones until we saw how the armies were to come out, and there's some evidence to
German infantry riding on Panzer III tanks in the Desert War, 1942.
A Desert Air Force Hurricane strafing a German tank in Tunisia, 1943.
German soldier house-clearing with a flamethrower during the summer offensive of 1942.
Where it was stopped: the gigantic statue of Mother Russia looms over the Stalingrad memorial to the Battle of Stalingrad, 1942–43.
The Arvo Lancaster was the mainstay of Bomber Command's night-bombing offensive, 1943–44.
A disastrous failure in the Battle of Britain, the Messerschmitt 110 found a new function as the preferred aircraft of the German night-fighter aces.
Self-defending formations of camouflaged B-17s could not survive over Germany. When they returned they were provocatively stripped to bare metal with garish squadron markings, to draw the Luftwaffe up into the guns of the long range P-51 Mustang, here escorting a B-17 at a post-war airshow.
Note the camouflaged wing panel from an aircraft cannibalised for spare parts used to patch the flak-damaged port wing of this B-17, photographed near Snettisham in early 1944.
Liberating Europe, the Allies still had to fight for every inch. A largely Canadian landing at Dieppe in August 1942 was a disaster.
The massive German fortifications in Normandy, 1944.
Grey wolves setting out to sea.
Their prey – a burning freighter sinks in the Indian Ocean.
The Japanese surrender delegation aboard USS Missouri, 2 September 1945. Interviewee Toshikazu Kase stands third from the right, holding a briefcase.
Beached Japanese transport at Guadalcanal.
The victorious Big Three at Yalta. Roosevelt was dying, Churchill was exhausted and only Stalin seemed eternal and indestructible. Churchill had planned to stay on in this resort after the meeting but was so dejected by the talks that he told his staff to get him away from 'this Riviera of Hades'.
Hitler's Gang on trial at Nuremberg, 1945–46. Luftwaffe Chief Hermann Goring, Former Deputy Führer Rudolf Hess, Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop, Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel and Senior SS Leader Ernst Kaltenbrunner sitting in front of Admiral Karl Dönitz (in dark glasses), his predecessor Admiral Erich Raeder, Hitler Youth Leader Baldur von Schirach and Labour Minister Fritz Sauckel.
indicate that our leaders underestimated the striking force of the Anglo-American Army that invaded Europe. We got back a good piece of western Austria which had been occupied by the Soviets. I can only say that I think, even from the Soviet point of view, that the division of Germany was regarded primarily as a division intended to keep the troops separate. I don't know when the Russians finally came to the conclusion that they were going to divide Germany.
ANTHONY EDEN
We did discuss with Russians at one of our meetings the possibility of the percentage authority we should regard the other as having in certain countries. The Americans didn't like the idea; it may seem reprehensible now and yet it was practically the only thing we could do and we thought it right to concentrate on those countries where we could. For geographical reasons in a country like Bulgaria, a Slav country, or Romania, which we couldn't reach, or Hungary, which was an enemy power, Churchill thought and I agreed with him that we could not attempt to have more than a limited influence there. So far as Greece was concerned the Russians did play fairly, and when the Greeks were fighting in Athens at Christmas 1944 and Churchill and I went out there, the Russian military representative came to the conference which we held and sat there with his gilded epaulettes, facing the local Communists, and he had quite an effect. So they did fulfil their part of the bargain so far as concerned Greece. And I am not at all repentant about the arrangement we made. Without it we couldn't have intervened as much as we did in Greece and give the country a chance not to fall under Communist rule, which Stalin might otherwise have required to be established there.*78
CHARLES BOHLEN
In the first place during the war it was very difficult to predict Soviet policy; on the other hand there was no way of telling definitely what effect the association with Western Powers during the war, in some form of cooperation, might have had on Soviet thinking. It seemed to be an idea that three powers would consult whenever there was any problems in regard to the occupied areas and I was surprised that the Russians bought it so easily. Whether or not Stalin had in mind the famous deal with Churchill of 1944 with percentage of influence, all I can say is that it never came up at all in any form. Roosevelt knew about it, but there was never any reference to it, at least as far as we were concerned, with the Russians. But it's conceivable that Stalin was operating to some extent on what was expressed in that piece of paper.
ANTHONY EDEN
Latterly FDR was a sick man, no question of that. When Churchill and I met him at Malta, where we'd hoped to have discussion, we were looking forward to meeting FDR when he arrived in this splendid battle cruiser in a wonderful dramatic scene. But when he came to talk – nothing. His daughter whirled him away after dinner and said, 'Now, father, it's your bedtime.' And he was sick but also I think there was this feeling that Roosevelt had, that some Americans had, they didn't want to be ganging up with us before they met the Russians. I'm sure it was a mistake, because any dictatorship in my experience functions better when those it's dealing with are ganged up. At any rate there was one of our difficulties, both that Roosevelt was sick and there was no preparation between us.
ALGER HISS
Director of the Office of Special Political Affairs, Yalta participant
There was no doubt there was a mood of euphoria. The war was going well in the West, the Russians were scoring victories. We rendezvoused with the British delegation at Malta so we got our ducks in a row before we talked to the Russians for a tripartite meeting of Allies. This, looking back on it, was a little strange, but it seemed perfectly normal at the time. The general attitude, in spite of the indications, was not edginess but distance – by the usage of 'we' and 'they', 'they' being the Russians. In spite of what that indicates there was a sense of unity in the curve of the whole development of Roosevelt's foreign policy since 1933. Yalta was the culmination of Roosevelt's policy – after all the United Nation as a term had been coined long before that. There was a belief, at least on Roosevelt's part, that coexistence was feasible, necessary and desirable. In the intemperate discussions that have come up about Yalta, the idea that nobody could trust the Russians to agree to come to lunch at a time they said was not present at that time. My experiences in all the negotiations I had with them, at San Francisco and again in London when United Nations had its first meeting, was that they were stiff bargainers, but when agreement was reached they were quite meticulous in sticking to the words of the agreement. This had some significance when we come to talk about the terms of the Yalta agreement. It was not my experience with them that they openly, cynically, welshed in any particular kind of phase – they stuck to what had been agreed to, so the real question is what was agreed to? Provisions were ambiguous so they had in their minds the right to interpretations, just as they thought we might have slightly different interpretations, which for me is the gist of the Polish part – the most difficult part of the Yalta agreement as far as the United Nations was concerned. We hammered that out in pretty considerable detail. Concessions were made to us both by the British and the Russians, and it was our show, we were the hosts. So Yalta did represent the culmination of the Roosevelt policy and there was great euphoria. There was a great deal of suspicion, I'm speaking for our side – I don't know about the Russian attitude, I would assume they were as capable of suspicion as we.
AMBASSADOR HARRIMAN
The whole myth of Yalta is that Churchill and Roosevelt sold out to Stalin. The argument was that in areas which the Red Army would occupy as they drove the Nazi forces back into Germany, Stalin was in control and there was nothing that Churchill or Roosevelt could have done physically except try to persuade Stalin. They agreed to nothing except they insisted there should be free elections, that people would be allowed to take their own part. There was an agreement about boundaries but the fundamental principle was that Poland and other countries should be free. Roosevelt's health in my opinion did not play a major role. It's perfectly true that he was weak – he was not able to work long hours, long conferences tried him, he stayed in bed in the mornings – but he took care of himself, he trained himself. These were subjects which he had been considering over several years and he had them fully in mind and he never gave in on anything that he wasn't ready to give in on. So I think there's very little in the fact to justify those who say his health played an adverse role. He was ill, he was a tired man, but a man of great courage and determination.
CHARLES BOHLEN
At the time the Red Army was in occupation of almost all of eastern Europe and most of the Balkans and therefore I think we learned there that wherever the Red Army was they would install a Sovietised system and there was just no argument about it. We did the very best we could on Poland. The British felt very strongly about it, having gone to war on behalf of Poland in 1939, and, although less so, we felt fairly strongly because of the large numbers of Poles in the United States who have intense interest to what happens in their country. Other aspects which are frequently overlooked came out more in favour of the Western side. The voting formula for the Security Council was adopted and also, largely due to the efforts of Mr Churchill backed by President Roosevelt, France obtained a zone of occupation and a seat on the Control Council. Stalin was very much opposed to that. You could tell when he was really worked up about something because he'd got up from his chair and walk up and down behind it several times in the discussion of whether France should have a zone or a seat on the Council.
ALGER HISS
My function was primarily as a technical assistant to Secretary of State Stettinius and to the President on matters relating to the United Nations. We'd corresponded back and forth with Great Britain and Russia about the things left unsaid, particularly the veto power, and we thought we were close to an agreement which could be reached at Yalta. In addition, I served in the Far Eastern Division before I started with United Nations affairs and so I was an extra in case Far Eastern policy questions came up. We had Bohlen and Freeman Matthews on such matters, and I guess that was the team. Harriman of course came, also expert not only on Soviet matters but on Europe generally; we were a pretty small team. I was concentrating on the United Nations; I could be fairly objective about the Polish and other issues. All of us went over all the papers together beforehand. This was a time when position papers were beginning to be popular and we had a session at Marrakesh with Mr Stettinius when we made him do his homework. I left out Harry Hopkins – I can see Harry's gaunt figure and face as we sat round the big table at plenary sessions. Bohlen sat on the President's left because he was interpreter. Stettinius sat on his right, behind was Harry Hopkins. Matthews and I were huddled in the remaining space in the background with papers in front of us, and occasionally whispering, occasionally passing notes. And there were pauses for consultation. In the mornings the hard work was done by the Foreign Ministers. All the plenary sessions were held at Lavadia Palace where President Roosevelt was, not because of his illness but because he was the only Chief of State – the others were merely heads of government, so it was protocol as well as convenient. We would try to hammer out in the morning sessions, the three Foreign Ministers and their staff, and after each session it was the duty of the technicians, Gladwyn Jebb and Pierson Dixon were my opposite numbers on your staff, working out the text of what had been agreed to be submitted to the plenary session.*79
ANTHONY EDEN
Every morning the Foreign Secretaries had to meet for several hours to try and prepare the agenda for that day, it's much too short notice really, and then in the afternoon the heads of government would also meet with their Foreign Secretaries. So far as we were concerned the hours were appalling, it was almost continuous. And then Roosevelt got himself tied up with an engagement to meet King Ibn Saud on a destroyer in the Suez Canal and had to leave. It's perhaps a good tactic in a negotiation to summon your train to take you away and to let your opponents think that you're not going to wait indefinitely, but to pin yourself down to an end date really puts you in a awkward fix, so we thought. Churchill and I were much troubled by this tight timetable to which we were working and which suited Stalin I think quite well.
CHARLES BOHLEN
I don't know how carefully Mr Churchill had studied the paper we had to sent on to the British; we sent it to the Soviets also. I was going out in the hall to see them off; Mr Churchill and Mr Eden had quite a discussion over the voting formula, Churchill took the line that after all the countries that had born the brunt of the war should really have the deciding vote and they would take care of the little countries, that the little countries shouldn't be allowed too much voice in things. Mr Eden disagreed quite strongly and Churchill suddenly turned to me and said, 'What is this voting formula of yours?' And I said, 'Well, Mr Prime Minister, it reminds me of a story of the South in the old days and the plantation. The owner of the plantation gave a negro a bottle of whiskey and when he asked the negro the next day how he liked the whiskey, the man replied it was absolutely perfect: "If it had been any better you wouldn't have given it to me, if it had been any worse I couldn't have drunk it."'
ANTHONY EDEN
They were certainly a remarkable triumvirate by any standards. FDR, it was his personal charm which was considerable and his flair as a politician was also considerable, but at that time his health was not good. I remember during one session Harry Hopkins coming up and saying quietly to me over my shoulder, 'I don't think the President's well. I think we ought to wind this up as soon as we can.' So he wasn't on top form at Yalta. Winston, with all his great qualities, but perhaps negotiation wasn't really his strong suit because Winston was essentially warm-hearted and responsive to anybody whom he respected and had an admiration for. In that sense he was a contrast to Stalin who was a cold, cool and a calculating negotiator who knew exactly what he wanted to get and went out to get it, never got excited, hardly ever raised his voice, a cold chuckle or laugh particularly when he thought that FDR or Winston were at odds. He'd get up and walk up and down and rub his hands, but he was a formidable man to negotiate against.
AMBASSADOR HARRIMAN
Yalta was really the highpoint of the relationship between the three men. Victory was in the air and, although we hadn't crossed the Rhine yet, the Germans were in retreat and so there was a good deal more talk about matters in the future, and Poland again became the most troublesome point. And it's interesting that both Roosevelt and Churchill felt they had an agreement with Stalin, both went to their respective legislative group, Prime Minister to Parliament, President to Congress, spoke in very effusive terms. Churchill said that Poland will have the right of self-determination; they were bitterly disappointed that Stalin had broken his agreement. And then there was the agreement for liberating Europe, for free and unfettered elections and they had high hopes that there would be solid cooperation in other fields as well in the post-war period.
ALGER HISS
Basically the impression I had, being fairly objective, was that three highly politicised leaders, Stalin, Churchill and Roosevelt, felt it was essential at that stage of the war that agreement be announced as to Poland. Roosevelt did not want anything like secret agreements, which had bedevilled [President Woodrow] Wilson; they wanted something that should be announced to the world. The Yalta communiqué was no treaty, things not spelled out in detail. Justice Burns, who was present as a supernumerary, I think we were the only people trained as lawyers, and if that had been a treaty there'd have been a whole staff. They came close to precision as their different objectives permitted. I was very aware that both President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Churchill were highly conscious of domestic political issues, they were frank about it, it's in the minutes – Roosevelt saying that Stalin must appreciate his problem with the large Polish electorate in Detroit. Mr Churchill saying Stalin must understand that he had to deal with public opinion, not only in the Commons but throughout the county regarding the Polish government in exile, as a gallant remnant. The nub of the disagreement was there was never a complete acceptance of the American side in a unitary sense of an abolition of the cordon sanitaire which had been set up after Versailles. Those of us most interested in the UN work had early concluded that if any kind of peaceful coexistence was to occur, that had to be done away with, the Russians had to be assured that there was no hidden landmine. And democratic government is a mixture of many forces, in flux at the same time, they rise and fall. Years ago, [American journalist] Walter Lippmann said that American foreign policy moves by one law only, the law of the pendulum swing, but while the pendulum is swinging, those who are espousing policies momentarily predominant are contending with those who know the pendulum will come their way later on – they never give up their position completely.
ANTHONY EDEN
We were not happy about what happened in connection with the Far East, it was never discussed at the conference in the sense of future boundaries or who wished to have what territories and Winston and I were very much take aback when on the last day of the conference, at a luncheon which Roosevelt was giving, we were suddenly told that the Russians and the Americans had come to some agreement about the Far East, disposing of some of the Chinese territories, and we thought that a very bad thing. I was so much against it that I didn't want us to have any part in it and urged the Prime Minister that we should let them make a deal if they wanted to and hold ourselves free. He took the view, we wouldn't have anything to do with the later developments either and though we didn't like it, we'd be better in on it, and see what we could do. But it was a very startling development and perhaps an example of FDR thinking that he could do things direct with Stalin more effectively than with the three of us round the table. I can't help feeling if that had been discussed at the conference end of the agreements, it wouldn't have ended up in the shape which it did.
ALGER HISS
They were seen not only by the participants but by the American public as a whole when they were announced as a vastly successful hopeful wartime agreement, solidifying unity during the remainder of the war and presaging a period of peace. The enthusiasm was tremendous and in view of their later criticism of the Yalta agreement you wouldn't believe what the same people were saying in Life magazine. They had some lovely things to say about it then. Once the Cold War was in full blast this became a political dodge to tie dead cats around the neck of the Democrats and all of the participants. Pretty notable Americans like Admiral Leahy, Mr Harriman, Bohlen and high military people including General Dean, who was our Military Attaché in Moscow, uniformly said that this was a successful agreement, we got all we could have hoped and in some cases more. Most people who have studied the text with any objectivity, if they start plotting up who made what concessions, actually the Russians made more concessions than the British. It's almost mysterious as to how the myth of Yalta grew. I wrote a magazine article in September 1955 called The Myth of Yalta. Just recently Professor Theo Harris has written a book called The Myth of Yalta and his book does show how it developed among Republicans and newspapers who supported the Republicans, and it was amazing, instant mythology. Usually myths take a few centuries to develop; this was done almost overnight, it was ugly. President Roosevelt's health was attacked; the general line was an ailing President, malevolently advised by me among others, sold Poland and China down the river. It's not the impression of those who were present, and I think it's less and less the attitude of the general public. After all, when the Republicans came in under Eisenhower they could no longer say there's no sense in dealing with the Russians, you can't trust them, because they began dealing with them so there had to be some separation of sheep from goats. And it seems to me the Republicans now take a good deal of pleasure in following the spirit of Yalta belatedly by having another President go to the Soviet Union and go to China, which Roosevelt never did.*80
ANTHONY EDEN
I don't know that our hopes in our hearts was very high, I don't think we could claim more for Yalta than that it was the best arrangement in the circumstances, in the war which was still being waged – that we could make with the war still very much going on, and Russia was still bearing a very heavy part of it. I've never known exactly what happened after Yalta. Certainly things began to sour very quickly and there were some in the Kremlin who didn't altogether like some of the things they'd agreed to. Nobody knows how the Kremlin works and one doesn't know whether there was any truth in that or not. I think it went sour because the military development strengthened Russia's hands and that whereas the Russians had felt it necessary to be considerate of Western opinion at Yalta, a few months later they didn't feel any such necessity because the war was going so well for them. Therefore they swept aside some of the engagements they'd got into. That certainly applied particularly about Poland.
President Roosevelt died of a cerebral haemorrhage on 12 April 1945 and was succeeded by Harry S Truman, who had only been Vice President since 20 January. Truman had replaced the pro-Soviet Henry Wallace, who in 1948 was the Presidential candidate of the Progressive Party, a Communist front, and was described as 'a propaganda parrot for the Kremlin'.
CHARLES BOHLEN
Mr Truman was a man with great powers of decision and the interview with Molotov, which I interpreted in 1945, he was fairly stern with Molotov and shut him up when he began to get into the propaganda explanation about Poland. His behaviour was cold and he merely told him he wished he'd tell Marshal Stalin that we'd like to know when they were going to begin to live up to their agreements. Molotov was more interested in the agreements about the Far East, which had not yet been implemented, but it was a rather unusual interview with a Soviet official. It gave me a certain amount of pleasure to translate rather firm stuff to the Soviets and I think Molotov was not quite used to hearing that. It was not quite as spectacular as Mr Truman makes out in his memoirs.