Deterioration of U.S.–Soviet relations

The deterioration of U.S.–Soviet relations was already underway when Harry S. Truman succeeded Franklin D. Roosevelt in April 1945. Disputes over Poland and Soviet conduct in Eastern Europe made the transition a test of whether wartime cooperation could survive the peace. Truman initially sought agreement, but reports from diplomats and confrontations with Soviet officials led him toward a firmer policy—one that treated cooperation as possible, but not at the cost of abandoning American commitments or accepting Soviet terms without resistance.

An inheritance of unresolved disputes

The strain preceded Truman’s presidency. By the winter of 1944–45, concern about Soviet intentions had become a predominant subject of discussion in the State Department. At issue was the gap between the Allies’ agreements and events on the ground: Soviet authorities in Poland were not keeping commitments made at Yalta, liberated American prisoners remained in Soviet camps, and the Soviet-backed Warsaw Provisional Government challenged the claim that Poland’s political future would be decided freely. Direct appeals to Joseph Stalin had produced little change. In the final weeks of his life, Roosevelt had expressed concern about mistrust between the allies but continued to hope that disputes could be resolved through cooperation.

The immediate diplomatic picture was mixed. Until shortly before the San Francisco Conference, the Soviet Union had refused to send its foreign minister, Vyacheslav Molotov. Stalin reversed that decision after the American ambassador in Moscow, W. Averell Harriman, urged him to make a gesture in memory of Roosevelt. Stalin said he would send Molotov if Truman requested it, and Truman did so at once. The decision appeared to offer a first opening with the new administration, but Harriman warned that it resolved none of the underlying disagreements. The British government, led by Winston Churchill, remained deeply apprehensive about Soviet policy.

Truman’s first assessment of Soviet power

Truman entered office without experience dealing with either the Soviet Union or Britain, without a foreign-policy adviser of his own, and without the background Roosevelt had failed to give him. He was unfamiliar with the principal diplomats and had not been briefed on the highest-level plans and decisions. His early efforts to catch up were intense: he read documents from the Map Room night after night, including correspondence and reports about the Soviet Union.

At Truman’s request, Harriman laid out what he saw as the central contradiction in Soviet policy. The Soviet leadership wanted cooperation with the United States and Britain, he argued, while also seeking control over neighboring states in Eastern Europe. Harriman believed that American willingness to cooperate had sometimes been mistaken for weakness, and that the United States should stand firm on vital questions. At the same time, he considered a complete break unlikely: the Soviet Union would need American financial assistance after the war, and workable relations remained possible if both sides made concessions.

Truman told Harriman he intended to be firm but fair. He accepted that Stalin would not offer complete cooperation, saying that a substantial measure of cooperation would be enough. Harriman also described the consequences of Soviet control in Poland and Romania: it meant more than influence over foreign policy, extending to secret police and the loss of freedom of speech. He urged Truman to abandon the assumption that the Soviet Union would necessarily follow accepted international principles, while maintaining that agreement with Moscow was still achievable. Truman agreed that the Polish issue could not simply be set aside; he warned that if the Yalta terms were not honored, the Senate might reject American participation in the United Nations.

The confrontation with Molotov

The meeting with Soviet representatives on April 23, 1945, brought the change in tone into view. Truman assembled a group drawn from Roosevelt’s administration, including Harriman, Edward R. Stettinius Jr., Henry L. Stimson, George C. Marshall, and other senior officials. There was no member of Truman’s former Senate staff or any newly selected adviser on Russia. Although Truman’s first brief meeting with Molotov at Blair House had been cordial, the American delegation now reported that the Soviet Union was insisting on its preferred government in Poland regardless of American objections.

Truman objected that agreements with the Soviet Union seemed to work in only one direction. He asked his advisers for their views, and Stimson urged caution, warning against a rushed rupture in relations. The discussion nevertheless marked a turning point: the American approach would take a different direction, and Truman said he would follow the majority’s advice. Accounts differ over the precise ending of his later exchange with Molotov. One version has Truman telling the minister that honoring agreements would prevent such a reprimand; another, given by Charles Bohlen, says Truman ended the conversation curtly and asked Molotov to convey his views to Stalin. Whatever the exact words, Harriman acknowledged that Truman had addressed Molotov vigorously and later thought the approach too forceful. Bohlen considered the difference from Roosevelt one of style rather than substance: Roosevelt, he believed, would have been smoother. On Capitol Hill, Arthur Vandenberg welcomed news of the encounter.

From European warnings to a broader policy

Truman’s firmness coexisted with uncertainty and occasional reversals. After the war in Europe ended, he ordered a reduction in Lend-Lease shipments not only to the Soviet Union but also to France and Britain; ships already underway were recalled. He apparently signed the order without reading it, relying on officials who said Roosevelt had approved it, and soon had to reverse the decision. Meanwhile, he continued to study the Yalta agreements, telling his staff that repeated readings revealed implications he had missed. He also told Roosevelt’s widow that patience would be necessary if peace were to hold.

Churchill pressed Truman to resist a withdrawal of Allied forces from their positions in Germany and Eastern Europe before the future of Poland and the character of the Soviet occupation had been settled. He warned that American and British military power in Europe was rapidly diminishing, leaving questions about what would happen as Soviet control expanded. In a May telegram, Churchill used the image of an Iron Curtain to describe the lack of knowledge about what was taking place behind the Soviet-held front. Truman responded that he intended to follow the American interpretation of the Yalta agreements, even though this would mean pulling back from the existing position in Germany. He agreed that a meeting with Stalin was important, but domestic political demands kept him in Washington until after the end of the fiscal year; he planned to send Harry Hopkins to speak with Stalin in the interim.

The tensions eventually required more than diplomatic protest. In 1947, as concern grew over the possibility that Soviet influence would extend beyond Europe, Truman met with congressional leaders to discuss aid to Greece. George C. Marshall presented the danger as part of a wider crisis that could reach Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. Dean Acheson urged an immediate, forceful response, and Truman emphatically agreed that the United States faced a choice between acting and losing ground by default. The meeting showed how the dispute with the Soviet Union was becoming a basis for sustained American policy, while also revealing that Truman’s ability to act depended on persuading Congress. What began as a succession crisis marked by incomplete information and contested agreements had developed into a more explicit policy of resisting Soviet expansion without abandoning the possibility of cooperation.