it happens to be named the hilliard art museum, and it is wonderful work. i think seven of his paintings are there. are there any other questions before we have our final break of the day, or? give michael bishop wonderful round of applause for a wonderful talk. thank you very much. [applause] next, a panel of world war ii scholars looks at the february at whicha conference, allied leaders franklin roosevelt, winston churchill, and joseph stalin met to look ahead to the postwar era. panelists can compare yalta , contrast the three leaders, and examine the political motives that drove the deliberations. the national world war ii museum in new orleans hosted the event. begin toe back, as we

silence our conversations, please remove to silence -- remember to silence your cell phones as well. i was thinking with yalta being an eight day conference, we have almost made a full eight hours talking about it. [laughter] one of our favorites and that is a roundtable discussion where we get all of the speakers up together to talk about themes, to ask each other questions, and to give you all one last time to pepper one, some, or all of our panelists with your own questions. i would ask if you have a question, if it is or specific panelist, please name that panelist, or if you want to throw it open to some or all. we are going to ask dr. going to bischoff-- dr. gunter

this panel. before i lead the desk leave the podium i would like to introduce our panelists. ladies and gentlemen, gunter will start it, and that i will run around the microphone. gunter? very much, jeremy. he throughout a few questions we could discuss, i thought. very interesting, the opening statement about his growing up in cleveland. keep in mind, there was a very good question from the audience thing as thee same selling out of eastern europe, the same thing as the selling out of china?

with that take debate in american was for politics, keep republicans had been out of office since 1942. and they wanted to win the white house, and this seems to be the issue where you could blame the democrats. selling out china. set -- yaltang myths echoed all the way into the 1970's in cleveland, about eastern europeans being sold down the river, as the saying wentz. i think that is an important history of yalta. president was not

invited. advert, too and charles de gaulle blamed what was going on on yalta. that is how long it was working inside history. i think the yalta myths are important topics we ought to be talking about. think if you will recall, his conclusion was this was the blueprint for allied victory. this ticked up in 1967. it was very much in the historiography at the time. i would just add to its, there halt, that he a

was afraid of the fortress in all steer a. he had the armies down to the south. they had no time to prepare. of, they were afraid selling to the oss that this would not be happening in the outs. there was another reason to get quickly down to the out spirit and the issue raised by someone online -- we might discuss this, too, the very general issue. different made yalta from previous conferences. isn't this the game of diplomacy ? tit for tat? is that what is being done?

i think that is a fair question to be discussed. out thesethrow potential issues, but i'm sure there's many more. >> you talk about the yalta myths, the selling out of eastern europe, selling poland down the river, any of these groups that lived in cleveland with me. you could answer this as well. there is stalin. roosevelt. he was on deaths door, but i love that you had a graduate student looking at word counts of the deaths and the size roosevelt' as interventions. that is another 1 -- we can stay

until now and doomsday. you, wasll still ask the fact that roosevelt was sick at yalta important? myth one hand, it's not a that the big three gathered together in decided the future of europe without much confirmation with the rest of the world. that's the reality. where the mythology starts, really, that the western allies were there in position to get a deal and is -- and didn't do that for whatever reason -- fdr was sick or there were spies in the american delegation or tosevelt was trying to get stalin to get the united nations, his main international project and his legacy goal.

it's important there because from polls, that is where it was agreed that whatever government they had in london would be replaced, and they were losing territories in the east. the molotov ribbentrop planned was accepted by the western allies. and that was the loss of their city in today's ukraine. it was depending on the controlling power. borders, was not decided yet. that was a real, real turning point and a major disappointment.

it was the word for betrayal in poland all the way until the 1970's and 1980's. >> maybe one more issue that was plokii's paper was reparations. of course, he had a point. the soviet union was struggling very badly. roosevelt and churchill could and to reconstruct the soviet union german reparations were to be needed. but there was a lesson to be learned from world war i that if you insist on reparations it might create bad politics.

that was one of the big issues s very early picked up. ii, correct dr. plok stalin got hisg, millions. even if it was not through yalta , he got it through various means. when they realized that was not such a good deal they often did not know how to put these industries back together. then they decided to take reparations out of current production in germany. and that is how the soviets got $10 billion. they took reparations from austria, too.

found out ae i remarkable thing. the soviets took as much reparations out of their ports in austria as the u.s. poured into their port in austria. that would almost make you think the u.s. paid the reparations -- [laughter] >> there's no such thing as a coincidence. that bischof: i thought was pretty remarkable. they took reparations away from german assets and eastern austria. that was all the way up until 1960. but what the historian has reminded us, we need to keep that in mind, tia well, the fact that the americans got reparations from germany, even though they did not demand any at yalta. how did they get it?

i got it in a smart way. .hey sent teams into germany and apparently that saved companies like dupont, who took these reduction plans, billions of dollars of research plans, so it is assumed this smart way of doing reparations netted the $10 billion or so, too. in the long run, both sides got what they wanted. i would like to throw in one issue gunter, about this of myths. myths are easy to sell when there is a colonel of truth to them. i don't really believe in the big lie. let me talk about poland.

we have all worked with graduate students at certain points in our career. i love them dearly. they bring us certain amounts of wisdom. the student was here. there was no real independent poland after the war. ironic nature of what happened to the polish state bidr the war, the feeling gone from one form of to any to another -- the germans got liberated, they got to live the benefits of a democratic way of life in western germany. i just want to put that in. we know why it happened and i think everyone knows why it happened. what kind of foreign policy is that? when the polls end up under the

the -- poles end up under yoke, you look at nazi atrocities, and poland is shocking. putting that out there. it's still there for me. winstonschof: churchill, was very aware of the fact that great written went to war over poland -- great britain went to war over poland. and he was going to bat for poland and the polish government and the declaration of liberated europe. wayid not work out that because he was very mindful of the fact that we went to war for poland. and churchill is the mastermind behind the growth of the yalta myth.

at least that is what i heard from you. sat across from michael collins, the great irish revolutionary -- prof. citino: the big fellow. irish, when he signed the treaty, said, "i have signed my own death warrant." and that turned out to be true. when we look back on that, we have to say ultimately the decision on his part and his fellow negotiators to sign that treaty was -- and i hate to use this word much, but it was inevitable. they did not have any choice. the british would not have accepted a notion of an irish republic and the british war machine was armed and ready to -- ireland even more. that's a very long-winded way of saying is it the conference we are talking about or is the a symbolference simply

of or a ratification of these it,itable forces, or could conceivably have gone another way on the coast? i would like to return actually to this question , that has been proposed about is just another place where there's a lot of horse trading taking place or whether there is something particular about yalta? i would say it's not much different from the conferences that happened before that in international history with one exception and that exception was liberalealistic, this view of president roosevelt,

who, of course, was following in the footsteps of president wilson, this idea of a liberal order and an international organization. when fdr comes back and addresses the joint session of and saysess and senate we are in a completely different more where there is no secret agreements done. announces diplomatic relations. then things start popping up. there is the participation in the war with japan. and there are problems in eastern europe. and that is where the reality of influence was of

and the division of the neoliberal world comes, and the clash, and from that point of from the expectations yalta become much, much higher. partially because of the purchase offense and fdr in particular put them on that level. on the more comment internal politics of eastern europe. sold down or not -- churchill comes back from to a revolt in his own conservative party. for a lot of people in britain, they went to war for poland. it was a major issue.

polish, it seems to me he was talking about three or 4 million polish voters in the united states. i'm not sure. that's what he was talking about . can't commit to that publicly before the presidential the poles, before that they were the staunchest supporters of the democratic party ever in the world. >> it is an important point.

historians have paid attention to that in yalta. and of course, in the spring, and i think the secret agreement on what the u.s. had to give the soviet union to get involved in the war and the far east. we talked about it. 1946.ame out in february, it was that secrecy, of course, which gave them, the republicans, the means to create themyth that yalta sold eastern europeans down the river. was beingw yalta discussed through the 1950's. i think it was very early, like 1965 that the foreign relations volume was published, which was a principal source on the american side.

it was very early on. usually it takes 30 or 40 years before any approved volume is published on any given event. >> [indiscernible] dr. bishop: i don't think you are on, jeremy? we have a question to the right from dr. dupont? >> one to all of you and then one that is very specific. everyone has used line which "ke " the u.s. gave" or forth.ll gave" and so can you name one thing that was given away that stalin had not already earned through military means question request the first question, more general. second, to mr. bishop -- i'm not sure whether you are defending churchill or setting up a theory about why he fought this, but it

seems to me there is an inherent contradiction between your later interpretation of his being appalled at what is happening in eastern europe and the fact that he wrote on the napkin -- is was, as ikin that understand it, initiated by him. either you are arguing there was yalta.f any after but he contributed mightily by his acquiescence in moscow. >> [indiscernible] >> tough crowd. a very goodyou make point. i mention it only because i did not want to present churchill as being unrealistically above the sorted compromises.

all i can say is he was not seating complete control to stalin, even on that paper. there was that symbolic 10% in the west and romania. i don't think he saw what was going to happen later. i just think it was an example of his commitment to empire and his vision for what the world should look like in the future. becoming dominant. he was alone there with stalin at the time. .nd the irony is things changed he forged an agreement with stalin, which ironically enough, stalin kept. a beasley, for his own reasons. and of course -- obviously, prison reasons. -- for his own reasons. and of course he steps back and

the american step in. it was not churchill's finest moments, and he himself said --t and he felt comfortable uncomfortable about that. but keep in mind churchill lived to be 90. he had a seven-decade almost political career. some of his views shifted over time. although i think he is a lot more consistent than a lot of people give him credit for. even though he was horrified by the yalta settlement he was alert to any sign that there might be an opportunity for a breakthrough in relations with the soviets and i quoted some of the things he said in the aftermath of the death of stalin and how he saw that as an opportunity to bring about a peaceful settlement. is it possible to hold both of those positions to hand you an agreement? a bedrockurchill was

anti-communist. complex beings. and then in of session comes to before. there's also the absolute horror. you are a conservative anti-communist and churchill is your hero you can be uncomfortable to read that he vastly preferred at all i stevenson in the presidential election, and he was disappointed in eisenhower's victory. he thought the soviet union was in a different dress and he could not abide john foster dulles, the american secretary of state, who he said

was the only bowl he knew who carried a china shop with him. bull -- bull he knew who carried a china shop with him. he was genuinely horrified by the idea that the world might consume itself. he was capable of change. he maintains the big principles throughout. fors given more credit being adaptable to circumstances. prof. bischof: i would not advise anyone to take at face value what you read in churchill's memoirs. there was one week of negotiations. yes, maybe there was a moment

with napkin, but it was the top of the iceberg with negotiations. churchill was much closer to -- toand then roosevelt stall and then roosevelt. , he did not't like like what was going to be the result of that. in that sense he was consistent. he wanted more, as the war was coming to an end. ideas -- heis understands he has a week and. -- week. and, yes, chamberlain was wrong wrong tonot think i am

trust stalin. it is a situation where there's very little for him to go on rd, whichalin's wo probably addresses, to a degree, your question about what he, fdr, had to believe. there was something stalin wa in easternhem europe. in the pacific, it's very clear. he was prepared to send his army into battle. , and he needrope end nationally recognition. that was something about the polish government. that is why -- he tried to say i did not interfere with what you did in paris and france with de gaulle. he was saying he did not really

insist on the veneer of diplomacy in negotiations because he needed legitimacy. prof. bischof: you brought the to 43.p i think it be fleshed out more. -- i think it was march 5, 1953. churchill comes out and says this would be a good opportunity to meet the new leadership at the highest level, be in another kind of summit meeting and i think he was trying to resolve the cold war then and there if he could. part of the problem was andnhower was now president eisenhower gave a speech in was not53 saying he excited about a summit because the soviets would need to make

major concessions. treaty -- maybe a german peace treaty. he had very specific conditions that the soviets needed to make concessions before we sit down with them in a summit meeting. nothing happened for the next few weeks and then the summit that happened was in bermuda and that was late 1953. there is the remark about the week woman in the street but is , talking about these soviet union. this tension between churchill and eisenhower carried into this

era where eisenhower was president and some historians think a great opportunity was missed maybe to bring the cold war to the end because remember, this was at a time when the nuclear arms race really expanded and churchill was tests in about those 54. it was all about those efforts to keep the nuclear arms race in check, but the soviets are not prepared to meet either, because they needed to figure out who would be stalin's successor. havee united states we elections every four years. almost two soviets years to find a new leader in chris jeff.

jeff -- chrisris chop -- >> did you have a point to add? give.t we had to >> one thing that puzzles me is, what are all of these percentages? percentages of what? i have always wondered what churchill was thinking about when he was doing these percentages of influence. >> i can see myself making a note like that.

the wisdom of the typical american undergraduate. what does 10% of grace actually mean?- greece actually >> it could have been a symbolic effort to say we are not going to withdraw entirely. even if there wasn't a lot of stock behind it. it didn't mean anything. the understanding of the , for churchnfluence that was part of the withdraw from that area.

for stalin, that was unacceptable. he later said the only way for with the west was to decide that is yours and this is mine. they were very insecure. they knew they could not compete with the united states. that is not how he understands the world. this is kind of an essay question.

you shared statistics about the casualties. west perception of ?hose numbers did they perceive that they could continue? >> i will start and i'm sure others can chime in. it was clear who was bearing the burden of fighting the germans. roosevelt and his people knew it. we still are not quite sure what soviet casualties were in world war ii.

that was the bedrock of roosevelt's strategy for winning the war. >> five times stalin appeared on the cover of time magazine. stalin never gave the number. today's estimate is 27 million.

stalin said that any other people but russians would kick us out. what happens during the war? he was not not eager to do the numbers. the must remind you that national world war ii museum has a much -- must watch movie. >> one of you brought up there were 15 minutes or so spent on a .ocument signed with this be a good time to discuss what that was? how did that have an impact on the soviet union?

>> there were major concerns on the american side that stalin would not sign that. eventually it was decided that stalin would not go for that. became a declaration.

stalin got into molotov's memoirs. he was saying that in interviews. what really mattered is the position of the forces on the ground. let them have the declaration. when the world went into the cold war mode, that was the only document where someone could argue that stalin violated the promises given at yalta.

there were no specific violations per se. it seems like he was talking to one of the military commanders. said it looks like the documents we have signed are so elastic that they can stretch from here to washington. that was the way for roosevelt to come back and say, i brought something. he promised to honor democratic principles. that was a tool for domestic

consumption back in the u.s. hadhe polish issue at yalta two sides to it. one was the borders. moving the entire country westward. the other issue was the future of polish government. they insisted that they wanted the polish government in exile to be represented in the fullest government.

in that context, the declaration of liberated europe came out. that was a wait for roosevelt to save face back home with the polish voters. it was a very weak declaration. it never really did the trick of enabling free elections in eastern europe. >> wasn't that was used by organizations like solitary -- solidarity? or my thinking of another document? >> probably.

that helped to organize the dissident movement. mindful of our time limit, i will ask the subsequent questions to be directed at one individual panelists. so we can try to get to all of the hands that are up. has beenovernment that wringing its hands about democracy in europe has no problem interfering in latin america.

poland was dismembered by germany. essentially destroyed as an entity. unity was lost. we could say there was a happy ending to this world war ii episode for the polish nation in one sense. i don't see churchill being very

bothered by democracy in india or egypt. britain has always fought for the rights of small nations except ireland. there are moments when you can afford your idealism. >> what would churchill's views be if russia was a non-communist state? both churchill and stalin were more comfortable with the whole spheres of influence way of looking at the world and roosevelt was.

he was one of those warning against appeasement. arguing for rearmament in britain. saving poland was important to him from the beginning. >> you talked about looking at yalta through different lenses. is based on looking at it through the lens of bottom to top and top to bottom.

how did they react to the yalta conference, if they had any reaction at all? >> that is a very good question. eventually this narrative, which i was still calling the standard narrative on yalta, still comes back no matter how many times you try to slay it. can't really say that there was a major public reaction to yalta. you are back from diplomacy.

the crystallization of this negative yalta narrative will be the course of several years. >> i would like to know what you think with some churchill -- winston churchill would do, we talked a lot about the winning of the cold war and the rise of democracy, what would he say in andonse to putin in ukraine the rise of nationalism and the loss of democracy in poland and hungary and the other eastern european countries? what we have another iron curtain speech? a friend of mine was on the radio in boston back in the

1970's for a call-in program. somebody called in and asked, what would lincoln have said about busing, which was the big issue of the time. my historian friend responded by saying, what is a bus? [laughter] tois always dangerous to try divine the sorts of things. i think he would be dismayed that this resort destination where he spent this glorious week on the riviera with his fellow leaders was later going to be seated back to ukraine and inn seized again by putin 2014. he wouldike to thank

be vigilant and on guard and making very inspirational speeches, while at the same time pursuing the interests of the united kingdom in a very canny way. >> i was thinking about the perception of the u.s. at yalta where the soviet union had been presented as a stout ally. union hashe soviet seen wars fought on its territories twice in 30 years. giving them a set of buffer states is understandable and legitimate and therefore it was not perceived as a sellout by the average american.

>> we talked a lot about how the information trickled out slowly. that was a stark reminder. that was traditional, old-fashioned european diplomacy. it only came out in little spurts.

it took a long time to figure out what had been agreed to at yalta. the agreements on poland lead that took amyth hold in the republican party. there you have it, the democrats and roosevelt are up to their old things, they are not defending democracy as they should. that is where the perception slowly comes in in a partisan way. it became a partisan myth. not all americans shared that. a question in the front room. talk about postwar

politics in america, you can't --s a comment about the hot house un-american activities commission how came into being probably because of the slow leakage of information at yalta. >> that committee actually came into being in 1940. at that time, it was persecuting nazis, or trying to find nazi spies in the u.s. only after world war ii was h uac really directed toward chasing communists out of the american government. it was sort of subverted after the war toward a new purpose against anti-communist activities. himself started to investigate such anti-communist in the federal government in 1947.

people retired from the federal government. , whocame joe mccarthy needed an issue in 1950 to be reelected. he went to the president of georgetown university and said, what would be a good issue today that what riley the american public? public.the american he said, the st. lawrence seaway is a big topic. [laughter] boring, said, that is nobody is interested in that. then he said anti-communism and government. from a catholic perspective. that is what mccarthy picked up. he held as later speech in west virginia and talked about 67 communist and the state department. took itse, mccarthyism strange fate.

i wrote my master's thesis at uno on the relationship between eisenhower and mccarthy. eisenhower said, you have to give him enough rope to hang .imself >> let's give a round of applause. [applause] before everyone gets up, i have a couple of closing remarks and then i will cede the podium. thank you in the audience for a great day, for your questions.

i hope this is not the last time we see you this year. we have wonderful programming throughout the year. keep in mind and look on our website for the september memory wars conference. lot about the a legacy of world war ii or yalta today. this conference in september will be discussing how the war is remembered throughout the world and how it is very relevant to current political and diplomatic affairs. looking at it through public memorials, museums, monuments. the week after the anniversary of the surrender ceremony. that is our international conference on world war ii.

let me ask for the final time for one of our speakers to come to the stage and make closing remarks as our senior historian. thank you. [applause] >> has i was listening to all the talks today, i thought we had a rich discussion on yalta. two issues that crystallized in my mind was this view of foreign policy that you either have more realistic positions. that is how it has always been. woodrow wilson said that is not how it should be. been a been -- has strain in a foreign policy since then.

we sometimes talk about wilsonian idealism. we can work together for a common purpose in a common good. i think the real meaning of it is tohow important end your wars. about how to end them. they are surprisingly easy to get into. by wrapping them up successfully is often a very difficult thing. clausewitz tells us that war is the beginning -- continuation of policy through other means. how can we get that out of the war? analysts, andtary one of my favorite book said, we fight wars for a better piece. aboutd not like something

the situation that you decided to go to war and spend billions of dollars of treasure and lose hundreds of thousands of lives. on that note, let's leave our discussion of the yalta conference and think about what might haveace meant in 1945. ofill and with the words douglas macarthur. these proceedings are closed. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2019] >> you are watching american history tv, covering history c-span style. archival films, lectures, and visits to museums and historical places.

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