When Soviet domination over most of Eastern Europe became obvious to the American and British public soon after the war’s end, there was sharp reaction. All actions went against the Atlantic Charter, which was the ideal of the public, and the renouncement of this caused a mixture of fear and hostility toward those nations that seemed to “participate willingly” in the march to communism. The Atlantic Charter was a joint declaration of principles to guide a post-World War II peace settlement. The charter supported the general principles of national self-determination and non-aggression. It resulted from a meeting at sea between Roosevelt and Churchill in August 1941. It proved to be the ideological base for the United Nations.

The fact that Roosevelt made one too many concessions to the Russians at the Yalta Conference did not sit too well with the “average American”. Roosevelt perhaps made one of the great mistakes of Western strategy and diplomacy. It was a huge error not to know the true nature and aims of Soviet communism. That he was ill at the time also made an indisputable difference. Roosevelt passed away not long after the February agreement. He died not truly knowing the consequences of what he had actually done. In his view, he had created a forum in the world through which nation-states could handle disputes and an organization through which the peace and security of the world could be maintained. Yet he did not realize in doing so what other mistakes he had made. Roosevelt’s presence at Yalta had consequences in the Far East, the Mid East, central and western Europe, and basically the world at large.

bility for the origin of the Cold War.

Winston Churchill was, like Roosevelt, “distressed”, on the eve of the Yalta meeting because of the deadlock in the negotiations that was going on at the same time over the future of Polish government. In a message to Roosevelt he expressed his feeling that “the end of the war may well prove to be more disappointing than was the last.” But by the time he reached Yalta, as Secretary of State Stettinius observed, most of this pessimism seemed to have left him, and Churchill’s own record of the Yalta conference is proof of the general optimism with which the Western leaders viewed the results of their meeting with Marshal Stalin. The protocol of the actually Yalta proceedings which summarized the agreements reflected the optimistic One-World mood. The Big Three unity seemed to be assured as the foundation of the new world instrument for peace, called the United Nations, the fulfillment of everything else that had been agreed upon was anticipated with hope and confidence. And insofar as the Western leaders considered some of the other agreements less satisfactory than the one on the United Nations, they looked upon the world organization, and Soviet Russia’s participation in it, as the best means for remedying them. Consequently, especially to President Roosevelt Soviet agreement to participate in the United Nations seemed so important that it justified concessions on what, at the time of Yalta, seemed less important points.

Yalta was one of the last times personalities would perform such clear and vivid roles in international affairs, and the conduct of the negotiations at Yalta shows that the personal feelings the participants brought with them—and their respective views of how the post-war world should look—was as important as the issues on the

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