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Yalta Conference
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The Yalta Conference was a meeting between the three representatives of the superpowers of post-WWII which included Winston Churchill of Great Britain, Theodore Roosevelt of the United States, and Joseph Stalin of the Soviet Union. The three had met at Yalta primarily to discuss what was to be done with post-war Germany, although each individual came into the conference with their own separate agenda as to what action should be taken. Stalin wanted to create a Soviet sphere of influence in Eastern Europe to tighten Soviet national security, while Churchill was looking to institute free elections and democracy among Eastern Europe. Roosevelt’s stance was a bit hesitant, and it is for this reason that some of his enemies claimed Stalin tricked him into “Selling Out” Eastern Europe to the Soviets. Roosevelt most definitely did not have any faith in communism, but he was ... suspicious of the imperialist aims of the British, and it was for this reason that Roosevelt was unable to coordinate with Churchill and prevent Soviet control of Eastern Europe. Roosevelt’s main concern was keeping allied unity intact, and to establish the United Nations by getting commitment from Stalin to join.
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The Yalta Conference was the second wartime summit meeting between U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and Soviet Premier Josef Stalin. It met from February 4 through February 11, 1945, in the Crimean city of Yalta. A mood of optimism prevailed at the conference because German armies were in retreat throughout Europe and victory was assured. The principal agenda item was Germany. Although there were sharp policy differences between the three parties, the Yalta Conference reached agreement on most issues, and the Big Three came away convinced that allied unity had been preserved.
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In Europe, the conclusions of the Yalta Conference concerning the division of Germany west of the Oder River into zones administered by an Allied Control Council were kept rigidly, months later, by the Americans and the British. It should never be forgotten that the heart of Europe, vital to the survival of all the continent, East or West, had been occupied by the forces of the West first and then abandoned to the depredations of the Red Army. This heartland included western and southern Bohemia with the large industrial city of Pilsen, the German state of Thuringia, heavily industrial Saxony up to the Elbe River, parts of Brandenburg-Prussia and of the Baltic coastal state of Mecklenburg.
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The other voluminous and authoritative reports of the Yalta Conference have been available for some years, with no restraining effect upon the lush growth of the Yalta Myth. Since it so patently feeds in pastures of fantasy, remote from fact, the Myth may even survive the release this March [March 17, 1955] by the State Department of the entire official record in two volumes totaling approximately 500,000 words. Within less than twenty-four hours the Scripps-Howard editorial response to this (surely unread) vast corpus of minutes and memoranda was firmly faithful to the cherished Fable: "The Yalta Story, a Pandora's Box." Many other papers were equally prompt in displaying their obliviousness to recorded fact: "Giveaway," "A Witch's Brew," "Sorry Record" were repeated, along with the main theme of the Legend that Yalta had contrived a "sellout" of Poland and China.
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After the Yalta Conference many critics of Roosevelt believed that the US gave up too much to the Soviet Union. However, at the time the Soviet Map of Europe/Asia Union held the superior position, yet didn't get everything they wanted, including severe monetary reparations from Germany. Later in history, as the US-Soviet conflict began, many people looked back on anything given to the Soviet Union as too much.
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The Yalta Conference, held from February 4 to February 11 in the year 1945 on the semitropical Black Sea coast of the Crimean peninsula, was attended by a host of Western statesmen and soldiers. Ironically, most of the participants remain heroes to the ambivalent perpetrators of the Yalta Myth.
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