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.At Yalta the American military wanted to tie down the details, while the State Department sought to establish Stalin’s territorial demands.Roosevelt hoped these could be tied to his larger goal of a strong, united China as a bulwark of postwar Asia.The British deemed the future of Europe to be more importantthan the UN.With the Red Army already occupying half ofPoland, it seemed vital to settle the borders of the new Polish state and to agree on a government that would satisfy the émigré leadership exiled in London.For Roosevelt the exact details were less important—his overriding aim was to prevent the Polish question from undermining Allied unity—but he too could not simply rubber-stamp the existing communist government in Warsaw.The British were also anxious to avoid repeating what they considered the mistakes of the Versailles settlement on Germany, particularly the punitive reparations that had destabilized the international economy and the substantial losses of territory that provoked German demands for restitution.The Foreign Office, mindful of another “lesson” of World War I, was skeptical that the United States would play a major role in postwar European security.Eden therefore pressed Churchill to ensure that the French were given a full role with the Big Three in the occupation and control of Germany as part of rehabilitating France as a major power.The British were also anxious for a formal agreement on proce-dures for repatriating Allied prisoners of war.The Red Army had liberated many British soldiers from German captivity, while thousands of Soviet citizens were now in the hands of the Western Allies.In principle, an exchange seemed simple but beneath it lurked both practical and moral problems.Stalin’s priorities at Yalta are harder to pin down because less Soviet documentation is available; nonetheless, one can sense them clearly from his behavior at Yalta.In most of the sessions his interventions were short and to the point; Churchill and Rooseveltwanted more from him and tended to make the running.But Stalin did take the initiative in raising the question of whether Germany should be dismembered—broken into a number of smaller states—124reynolds_01.qxd 8/31/07 10:30 AM Page 125yalta 19 45and he presented precise demands for substantial reparations from the defeated enemy.The Polish question was also very important, as indicated by the unusually long speeches Stalin delivered on this subject.Aside from the long-term issue of Soviet territory and security, Stalin wanted to ensure order and a friendly government in the rear of the Red Army as it drove into Germany: he kept harping on about attacks by Polish partisans on Soviet troops.These complaints were not entirely unreasonable but, under cover of the need for security in a war zone, the NKVD was systematically eliminating the noncommunist Polish leaders.The question of Japan also mattered greatly to Stalin but he let the Americans take the initiative, as they were clearly ready to do.The Big Three came to the table with a range of very different aims and priorities.Churchill and Stalin differed about key issues, and the likelihood of clashes between them was therefore higher than between Roosevelt and Stalin.On some matters, such as the dismemberment of Germany and the future of France, the Americans and Soviets took a very similar line but, conversely, the British shared some of Stalin’s skepticism about American plans for the UN.Conference diplomacy is about resolving differences through an interlocking set of compromises and tradeoffs, in which no party gains everything but all get something and concede something.This is what happened at Yalta.Over the first two days the Big Three brought most of the diplomatic issues to the table.From Wednesday, February 6, the deals began to be made.Friction over the United Nations Organization dated back tothe Dumbarton Oaks conference of August–October 1944.Thislengthy gathering in Washington, D.C., established the outline structure of the new body, including a General Assembly of all members and a Security Council, or executive, whose inner core would comprise five permanent members: the Big Three plusFrance and China
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