When Major Jordan reported the facts to Washington he was
In April, 1943, the Russian liaison officer told Jordan that a very special shipment of experimental chemicals was coming through. The Russian officer called Harry Hopkins in Washington and then turned the phone over to Jordan. Major Jordan reports that Harry Hopkins told him: “I don’t want you to discuss this with anyone, and it is not to go on the records. Don’t make a big production of it, but just send it through quietly, in a hurry.”
The Russian officer later told Jordan the shipment was “bomb powder” and Jordan saw an entry in the officer’s folder which said “Uranium.” The shipment came through June 10, 1943. It was the first of several. At least 1,465 pounds of uranium salts are said to have been sent through to the Soviet Union. Metallurgists estimate that this could be reduced to 6.25 pounds of fissionable U-235. This is two pounds more than would be necessary to produce an atomic explosion. On July 24, 1945, at Potsdam, President Truman announced to Winston Churchill and Joseph Stalin that the United States had finally developed a highly secret bomb. He told them this bomb possessed almost unbelievable explosive power. Secretary of State James F. Byrnes was watching Stalin and noted that he did not seem particularly surprised, or even interested in the announcement. Four years later (September 23, 1949), President Truman announced to the world that Russia had successfully exploded an atomic bomb—years ahead of U.S. expectations! Some officials wondered why, with all the help they received, the Russians had not exploded one long before.
Closing Months of World War II
Historically, Russia has always been stronger in defense than in attack. During World War II the Russian people displayed an incredible will to resist during the days when even Hitler thought they were completely beaten. They suffered astronomical losses: 7 million dead (including 2.5 million Russian Jews exterminated by the Nazis and 1.5 million other Soviet civilians killed by the Germans), while approximately 3 million died in combat. From 3 to 4 million were taken prisoners but the number of wounded and maimed is not given. As a result of the war there was a destruction of 1,700 Russian towns, 70,000 villages and hamlets, 31,000 factories, 84,000 schools, 40,000 miles of track, in addition to the destruction of 7 million horses, 17 million head of cattle, and 20 million hogs. This represented about one-fourth of all Soviet property.
There is no way of knowing whether or not Stalin ever forced himself to acknowledge it, but this almost incomprehensible toll of monstrous destruction might very well have been avoided if Stalin had not made the insidious mistake of deliberately signing the pact with Hitler in 1939 which triggered the opening campaign of World War II. There are leading political authorities who now state that if Hitler had been forced to delay his campaign into Poland because of a threat from Russia, it would have given the Western Nations sufficient time to build up their forces, and by restoring a balance power in Europe the entire saga of World War II might have occurred.
U.S. Policy of Coexistence Enters the Fourth Stage
During World War II the President of the United States received two different interpretations of Communist policy and two different recommendations as how best to deal with the Communist leaders. One group of advisers took the historical approach, accepted the Communists as the world revolutionists which they described themselves to be, and assumed that their past conduct was the safest criterion of how they might be expected to act in the future. A second group of advisers presented a much more idealistic view of the Communist leaders. They wanted people to forget the past; to look upon Communist boorishness as nothing more than political immaturity, something which could be changed by patient endurance and expansive generosity.
To this second group, there rapidly gravitated not only theoretical idealists, but men and women who were later found to be deeply involved in outright subversion against the United States government.{77} Historians now find it difficult to define just where idealism left off and subversion took over. In any event this was the group which dominated the Lend-Lease program and set the stage for policies which controlled U.S. relations with Russia for approximately fifteen years.
This was also the group of presidential advisers who acclaimed with the greatest enthusiasm the slightest suggestion that the Communists were “changing.” For example, when the Communist International was disbanded May 22, 1943, this group hailed the announcement as incontrovertible evidence that the Communist leaders had renounced world conquest. Others suspected that this was merely a propaganda device. The latter proved to be the case, as Igor Gouzenko, the former Russian code clerk, testified: “The announcement of the dissolution of the Comintern (Communist International) was probably the greatest farce of the Communists in recent years. Only the name was liquidated, with the object of reassuring public opinion in the democratic countries. Actually the Comintern exists and continues its work, because the Soviet leaders have never relinquished the idea of establishing a Communist dictatorship.”{78}
When many high officials of the President’s own party saw the dangerous direction in which U.S. policy was moving, they hastened to warn him. One interesting conversation took place during the war between the President and his good friend, William C. Bullitt, whom the President had sent to Russia as the first U.S. ambassador in 1933. Mr. Bullitt had just finished outlining to the President many of his personal experiences with Joseph Stalin, and had warned the President to keep up his guard when dealing with the Communist leaders.
“Bill,” replied the President, “I don’t dispute your facts; they are accurate. I don’t dispute the logic of your reasoning. I just have a hunch that Stalin is not that kind of a man. Harry (Hopkins) says he’s not, and that he doesn’t want anything but security for his country. And I think that if I give him everything that I can, and ask nothing from him in return… he won’t try to annex anything, and will work with me for a world peace and democracy.”{79}
The philosophy reflected in this statement is the keynote to an understanding of the conferences held by the “Big Three” toward the close of the war. By that time the diplomatic strategy of the United States (which began with simple co-existence in 1933) had passed into its fourth phase—the complete acceptance of the Russian Communists as full partners the plans for preserving future world peace.
Creation of the United Nations
During August and September 1944, the representatives of Britain, China, Russia and the United States, met at Dumbarton Oaks in Washington, D.C. At this conference the constitutional foundation for the United Nations was laid. In it Russia was not only made a full partner, but a dominant stockholder. A most significant development was the fact that, while other nations objected, Russia insisted on the right to exercise the veto power even if she were a party to the dispute. This violated the very foundation of international jurisprudence but the democracies consented. They were ready to pay almost any price to get Russia to participate.
By December 28, 1944, the American Ambassador to Russia began to express misgivings about U.S.-Soviet relations and the part Russia would play in the post-war period: “The Soviets have definite objectives in their future foreign policy, all of which we do not as yet fully understand…. From Soviet actions so far, the terms ‘friendly’ and ‘independent’ appear to mean something quite different from our own interpretation.”{80}
Once the tide of war had turned, there was an increased arrogance in Soviet treatment of U.S. officials. General Deane wrote to Washington about Lend-Lease and said: “Even our giving is viewed with suspicion…. The party of the second part (the U.S.) is either a shrewd trader to be admired or a sucker to be despised…. I have yet to see the inside of a Russian home. Officials dare not become too friendly with us, and others are persecuted for this offense.”{81}
By the following April the Prime Minister of England was becoming fed up with the whole Russian picture.
