Effects

Effects

United Nations
Marshall Plan
Potsdam Conference
Yalta Conference
Tehran Conference

Tehran Conference

As World War II raged around the globe, the President of the United States, Franklin D. Roosevelt, began calling for a meeting of the leaders from the key Allied powers. While the Prime Minister of Great Britain, Winston Churchill, was willing to meet, the Premier of the Soviet Union, Joseph Stalin, played coy. Desperate to make a conference happen, Roosevelt conceded several points to Stalin, including choosing a location that was convenient to the Soviet leader. Agreeing to meet in Tehran, Iran on November 28, 1943, the three leaders planned to discuss D-Day, war strategy, and defeating Japan.Wishing to present a unified front, Churchill first met Roosevelt in Cairo, Egypt on November 22. While there, the two leaders met with Chinese Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek and discussed war plans for the Far East. While in Cairo, Churchill was unable to engage Roosevelt regarding the upcoming meeting in Tehran and the American president remained withdrawn and distant. Arriving in Tehran on November 28, Roosevelt intended to deal with Stalin personally, though his declining health prevented him from operating from a position of strength.The first of only two wartime meetings between the three leaders, the Tehran Conference opened with Stalin brimming with confidence after several major victories on the Eastern Front. Opening the meeting, Roosevelt and Churchill sought to ensure Soviet cooperation in achieving the Allies' war policies. Stalin was willing to comply, however he demanded Allied support for his government and the partisans in Yugoslavia, as well as border adjustments in Poland. Agreeing to Stalin's demands, the meeting moved onto the planning of Operation Overlord (D-Day) and the opening of a second front in Western Europe.Though Churchill advocated for an expanded Allied push through the Mediterranean, Roosevelt, who was not interested in protecting British imperial interests, insisted that the invasion take place in France. With the location settled, it was decided that the attack would come in May 1944. As Stalin had been advocating for a second front since 1941, he was very pleased and felt that he had accomplished his principal goal for the meeting. Moving on, Stalin agreed to enter the war against Japan once Germany was defeated.

As the conference began to wind down, Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin discussed the end of the war and reaffirmed their demand that only unconditional surrender would be accepted from the Axis Powers and that the defeated nations would be divided into occupation zones under American, British, and Soviet control. Other minor issues were dealt with before the conference's conclusion on December 1 including the three agreeing to respect the government of Iran and to support Turkey if it was attacked by Axis troops.Departing Tehran, the three leaders returned to their countries to enact the newly decided war policies. As would happen at Yalta in 1945, Stalin used Roosevelt's weak health and Britain's declining power to dominate the conference and achieve all of his goals. Among the concessions he gained from Roosevelt and Churchill was a shifting of the Polish border to the Oder and Neisse rivers and the Curzon line, as well as de facto permission to oversee the establishment of governments as countries in Eastern Europe were liberated. Many of these concessions helped set the stage for the Cold War once World War II ended.


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"Tehran Conference (WWII)"[http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/585632/Tehran-Conference]
"Tehran Conference,1943"[http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ho/time/wwii/104429.htm]

Yalta Conference

The Yalta Conference took place in a Russian resort town in the Crimea from February 4-11, 1945, during World War Two. At Yalta, U.S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin made important decisions regarding the future progress of the war and the postwar world.The Allied leaders came to Yalta knowing that an Allied victory in Europe was practically inevitable but less convinced that the Pacific war was nearing an end. Recognizing that a victory over Japan might require a protracted fight, the United States and Great Britain saw a major strategic advantage to Soviet participation in the Pacific theater. At Yalta, Roosevelt and Churchill discussed with Stalin the conditions under which the Soviet Union would enter the war against Japan and all three agreed that, in exchange for potentially crucial Soviet participation in the Pacific theater, the Soviets would be granted a sphere of influence in Manchuria following Japan's surrender. This included the southern portion of Sakhalin, a lease at Port Arthur (now Lüshunkou), a share in the operation of the Manchurian railroads, and the Kurile Islands. This agreement was the major concrete accomplishment of the Yalta Conference.The Allied leaders also discussed the future of Germany, Eastern Europe and the United Nations. Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin agreed not only to include France in the postwar governing of Germany, but also that Germany should assume some, but not all, responsibility for reparations following the war. The Americans and the British generally agreed that future governments of the Eastern European nations bordering the Soviet Union should be "friendly" to the Soviet regime while the Soviets pledged to allow free elections in all territories liberated from Nazi Germany. Negotiators also released a declaration on Poland, providing for the inclusion of Communists in the postwar national government. In discussions regarding the future of the United Nations, all parties agreed to an American plan concerning voting procedures in the Security Council, which had been expanded to five permanent members following the inclusion of France. Each of these permanent members was to hold a veto on decisions before the Security Council.Initial reaction to the Yalta agreements was celebratory. Roosevelt and many other Americans viewed it as proof that the spirit of U.S.-Soviet wartime cooperation would carry over into the postwar period. This sentiment, however, was short lived. With the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt on April 12, 1945, Harry S. Truman became the thirty-third president of the United States. By the end of April, the new administration clashed with the Soviets over their influence in Eastern Europe, and over the United Nations. Alarmed at the perceived lack of cooperation on the part of the Soviets, many Americans began to criticize Roosevelt's handling of the Yalta negotiations. To this day, many of Roosevelt's most vehement detractors accuse him of "handing over" Eastern Europe and Northeast Asia to the Soviet Union at Yalta despite the fact that the Soviets did make many substantial concessions.


"Yalta Conference"[http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/2WWyalta.htm]
"Yalta Conference(WWII)"[http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/651424/Yalta-Conference]
"Yalta Conference"[http://www.ibiblio.org/pha/policy/1945/450212b.html]

Potsdam Conference

The Big Three Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and U.S. President Harry Truman met in Potsdam, Germany, from July 17 to August 2, 1945, to negotiate terms for the end of World War II.The major issue at Potsdam was the question of how to handle Germany. At Yalta, the Soviets had pressed for heavy postwar reparations from Germany, half of which would go to the Soviet Union. While Roosevelt had acceded to such demands, Truman and his Secretary of State, James Byrnes, were determined to mitigate the treatment of Germany by allowing the occupying nations to exact reparations only from their own zone of occupation. Truman and Byrnes encouraged this position because they wanted to avoid a repetition of the situation created by the the Treaty of Versailles, which had exacted high reparations payments from Germany following World War One. Many experts agreed that the harsh reparations imposed by the Versailles Treaty had handicapped the German economy and fueled the rise of the Nazis.Despite numerous disagreements, the Allied leaders did manage to conclude some agreements at Potsdam. For example, the negotiators confirmed the status of a demilitarized and disarmed Germany under four zones of Allied occupation. According to the Protocol of the Conference, there was to be "a complete disarmament and demilitarization of Germany"; all aspects of German industry that could be utilized for military purposes were to be dismantled; all German military and paramilitary forces were to be eliminated; and the production of all military hardware in Germany was forbidden. Furthermore, Germany society was to be remade along democratic lines by repeal of all discriminatory laws from the Nazi era and by the arrest and trial of those Germans deemed to be "war criminals." The German educational and judicial systems were to be purged of any authoritarian influences, and democratic political parties would be encouraged to participate in the administration of Germany at the local and state level. The reconstitution of a national German Government was, however, postponed indefinitely, and the Allied Control Commission (which was comprised of four occupying powers, the United States, Britain, France, and the Soviet Union) would run the country during the interregnum.

One of the most controversial matters addressed at the Potsdam Conference dealt with the revision of the German-Soviet-Polish borders and the expulsion of several million Germans from the disputed territories. In exchange for the territory it lost to the Soviet Union following the readjustment of the Soviet-Polish border, Poland received a large swath of German territory and began to deport the German residents of the territories in question, as did other nations that were host to large German minority populations. The negotiators at Potsdam were well-aware of the situation, and even though the British and Americans feared that a mass exodus of Germans into the western occupation zones would destabilize them, they took no action other than to declare that "any transfers that take place should be effected in an orderly and humane manner" and to request that the Poles, Czechoslovaks and Hungarians temporarily suspend additional deportations.In addition to settling matters related to Germany and Poland, the Potsdam negotiators approved the formation of a Council of Foreign Ministers that would act on behalf of the United States, Great Britain, the Soviet Union, and China to draft peace treaties with Germany's former allies. Conference participants also agreed to revise the 1936 Montreux Convention, which gave Turkey sole control over the Turkish Straits. Furthermore, the United States, Great Britain, and China released the "Potsdam Declaration," which threatened Japan with "prompt and utter destruction" if it did not immediately surrender (the Soviet Union did not sign the declaration because it had yet to declare war on Japan).The Potsdam Conference is perhaps best known for President Truman's July 24, 1945 conversation with Stalin, during which time the President informed the Soviet leader that the United States had successfully detonated the first atomic bomb on July 16, 1945. Historians have often interpreted Truman's somewhat firm stance during negotiations to the U.S. negotiating team's belief that U.S. nuclear capability would enhance its bargaining power. Stalin, however, was already well-informed about the U.S. nuclear program thanks to the Soviet intelligence network, so he also held firm in his positions. This situation made negotiations challenging. The leaders of the United States, Great Britain, and the Soviet Union, who, despite their differences, had remained allies throughout the war, never met again collectively to discuss cooperation in postwar reconstruction.

"Potsdam"[http://www.trumanlibrary.org/teacher/potsdam.htm]

"The Teheran, Yalta and Potsdam Conferences"[http://militaryhistory.suite101.com/article.cfm/cold_war_conferences]

"Potsdam Conference"[http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/events/wwii-dpl/hd-state/potsdam.htm]

"Potsdam Conference"[http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761554624/potsdam_conference.html]

Marshall Plan

In the immediate post-World War II period, Europe remained ravaged by war and thus susceptible to exploitation by an internal and external Communist threat. In a June 5, 1947, speech to the graduating class at Harvard University, Secretary of State George C. Marshall issued a call for a comprehensive program to rebuild Europe. Fanned by the fear of Communist expansion and the rapid deterioration of European economies in the winter of 1946-1947, Congress passed the Economic Cooperation Act in March 1948 and approved funding that would eventually rise to over $12 billion for the rebuilding of Western Europe.The Marshall Plan generated a resurgence of European industrialization and brought extensive investment into the region. It was also a stimulant to the U.S. economy by establishing markets for American goods. Although the participation of the Soviet Union and East European nations was an initial possibility, Soviet concern over potential U.S. economic domination of its Eastern European satellites and Stalin's unwillingness to open up his secret society to westerners doomed the idea. Furthermore, it is unlikely that the U.S. Congress would have been willing to fund the plan as generously as it did if aid also went to Soviet Bloc Communist nations.Thus the Marshall Plan was applied solely to Western Europe, precluding any measure of Soviet Bloc cooperation. Increasingly, the economic revival of Western Europe, especially West Germany, was viewed suspiciously in Moscow. Economic historians have debated the precise impact of the Marshall Plan on Western Europe, but these differing opinions do not detract from the fact that the Marshall Plan has been recognized as a great humanitarian effort. Secretary of State Marshall became the only general ever to receive a Nobel Prize for peace. The Marshall Plan also institutionalized and legitimized the concept of U.S. foreign aid programs, which have become a integral part of U.S. foreign policy.

"Marshall Plan"[http://eh.net/encyclopedia/article/Ritschl.Marshall.Plan]
"Marshal Plan"[http://www.crf-usa.org/bill-of-rights-in-action/bria-20-3-a.html]

United Nations

On January 1, 1942, representatives of 26 nations at war with the Axis powers met in Washington to sign the Declaration of the United Nations endorsing the Atlantic Charter, pledging to use their full resources against the Axis and agreeing not to make a separate peace. At the Quebec Conference in August 1943, Secretary of State Cordell Hull and British Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden agreed to draft a declaration that included a call for "a general international organization, based on the principle sovereign equality of all nations." An agreed declaration was issued after a Foreign Ministers Conference in Moscow in October 1943. When President Franklin D. Roosevelt met with Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin in Tehran, Iran, in November 1943, he proposed an international organization comprising an assembly of all member states and a 10-member executive committee to discuss social and economic issues. The United States, Great Britain, Soviet Union, and China would enforce peace as "the four policemen." Meanwhile Allied representatives founded a set of task-oriented organizations: the Food and Agricultural Organization (May 1943), the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (November 1943), the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (April 1944), the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank (July 1944), and the International Civil Aviation Organization (November 1944).U.S., British, Soviet, and Chinese representatives met at Dumbarton Oaks in Washington in August and September 1944 to draft the charter of a postwar international organization based on the principle of collective security. They recommended a General Assembly of all member states and a Security Council consisting of the Big Four plus six members chosen by the Assembly. Voting procedures and the veto power of permanent members of the Security Council were finalized at the Yalta Conference in 1945 when Roosevelt and Stalin agreed that the veto would not prevent discussions by the Security Council. Roosevelt agreed to General Assembly membership for Ukraine and Byelorussia while reserving the right, which was never exercised, to seek two more votes for the United States.Representatives of 50 nations met in San Francisco April-June 1945 to complete the Charter of the United Nations. In addition to the General Assembly of all member states and a Security Council of 5 permanent and 6 non-permanent members, the Charter provided for an 18-member Economic and Social Council, an International Court of Justice, a Trusteeship Council to oversee certain colonial territories, and a Secretariat under a Secretary General. The Roosevelt administration strove to avoid Woodrow Wilson's mistakes in selling the League of Nations to the Senate. It sought bipartisan support and in September 1943 the Republican Party endorsed U.S. participation in a postwar international organization, after which both houses of Congress overwhelmingly endorsed participation. Roosevelt also sought to convince the public that an international organization was the best means to prevent future wars. The Senate approved the UN Charter on July 28, 1945, by a vote of 89 to 2. The United Nations came into existence on October 24, 1945, after 29 nations had ratified the Charter.

"United Nations"[http://www.worldwar2database.com/html/postwar.htm]

"United Nations"[http://library.thinkquest.org/C008616/site/ThinkQuest/linked%20pages/WWII%20and%20the%20United%20Nations.htm]