Potsdam Conference

The Potsdam Conference was the first and only major-power conference attended by Harry S. Truman and Joseph Stalin. It brought together Truman, Stalin, and Winston Churchill to address the unsettled peace in Europe and the war against Japan, while the developing atomic bomb sharpened the stakes. Its sessions produced proposals and agreements, but also made plain how far the former allies differed over political freedom, national influence, and the postwar order.

Setting and Stakes

The conference’s first plenary session met at Cecilienhof Palace, the former summer residence of Crown Prince Wilhelm of Prussia. The sprawling, ivy-covered neo-Tudor building had recently served as a military hospital, first for Germans and then for Russians. Its oak-paneled reception hall, with dark red, black, and gold furnishings, became a conference chamber: a twelve-foot circular table stood at its center, ringed by fifteen chairs, five for each country. The chairs for Truman, Stalin, and Churchill were larger than the others and marked by gilded cupids on their backs; behind them, additional chairs and desks accommodated advisers and specialists as different subjects arose.

The imposing room was also a tightly controlled one. Nearly two hundred reporters had traveled to Berlin, but none were admitted. Proceedings took place behind a ring of bayonets, and the number of people allowed inside at any one time was restricted. When James F. Byrnes’s secretary arrived with papers and had to wait, two women from the Russian staff immediately occupied chairs and remained until she left. The contrast was striking: a gathering described as bearing grave responsibility for the future of its peoples and of humanity was conducted beyond the reach of the correspondents assembled to report it.

Truman arrived with an assertive approach to the agenda. At the opening session, Stalin proposed that Truman preside because he was the only head of state present; Churchill seconded the proposal. Truman accepted and moved rapidly into prepared remarks, setting out an item-by-item order of business. He proposed a Council of Foreign Ministers to prepare for a peace conference and submitted a draft concerning the administration of Germany. He also pressed for the implementation of the Yalta Declaration, which promised help for liberated European countries to establish democratic governments through free elections. He argued that those obligations had not been fulfilled, especially in Romania, Bulgaria, and Greece.

The disputes were not confined to Europe’s borders. Truman called for Italy to be admitted to the United Nations as soon as possible. Churchill objected, invoking Britain’s wartime conflict with Italy and Roosevelt’s earlier condemnation of Italy’s attack as a betrayal. When Truman raised his proposal to internationalize access to major inland waterways, rivers, and canals, Stalin cut off discussion, saying the question was not ripe. Truman had presented the plan as a way to prevent future conflict and support a prosperous, self-sustaining Europe; Stalin’s response underscored how little agreement the conference could assume.

Negotiation and Political Change

The conference’s arguments took place against a developing reassessment of relations with the Soviet Union. W. Averell Harriman had warned Truman that Soviet control in Poland or Romania meant more than influence over foreign policy: it could bring secret police and the end of freedom of speech. Harriman urged a change in American policy while maintaining that workable relations with the Soviet Union remained possible if both sides made concessions. Truman accepted that complete cooperation from Stalin was unrealistic, saying he would be satisfied with 85 percent. He also warned that if the Polish question were not settled as agreed at Yalta, the Senate might reject American participation in the United Nations, and said he would make that point to Vyacheslav Molotov plainly.

The proceedings were interrupted on July 25, when Churchill and members of the British delegation left for London as the results of the general election were being settled. Clement Attlee departed as well, although those at the conference expected Churchill to return after the election. Truman privately reflected on the passing of the older wartime leadership: Franklin D. Roosevelt was gone, and now Churchill’s position was uncertain. He wondered about the consequences if Stalin were suddenly to die and a struggle for power began in the Soviet Union. His feelings about Churchill were mixed; he respected and liked him, but also considered whether Churchill’s absence might make progress with Stalin easier.

The conference resumed with Attlee participating for Britain. Its thirteenth and final session at Cecilienhof Palace focused almost entirely on the wording of the final communiqué and continued past midnight. The negotiations had narrowed to a few words about Poland’s western frontier: Molotov proposed replacing a description that ran through Swinemünde with one that placed the frontier west of the town. After James F. Byrnes asked how far west, Ernest Bevin suggested immediately west, and Truman agreed. The close attention to a small phrase reflected the larger contest over borders and political influence that had run through the meeting.

The Atomic Bomb and Japan

The conference unfolded as Truman was learning the nature and consequences of the atomic project. Staff investigators had noticed unexplained expenditures for a secret enterprise identified as the Manhattan Project. In June 1943, Truman had telephoned Henry L. Stimson about the project; Stimson told him that it was a highly important secret development, and Truman accepted his assurance that it served a specific and unique purpose. By July, Truman had learned enough to understand its essential nature. When Lewis Schwellenbach asked about enormous land condemnations for DuPont along the Columbia River near Hanford, Truman wrote to reassure him.

At a later meeting in Truman’s office, Stimson handed him a typewritten memorandum. Its opening sentence warned that within four months the United States would probably have completed the most terrible weapon in human history, one bomb capable of destroying a whole city. Stimson explained that the United States and Britain had shared in its development, but that only the United States could then produce it; he expected the Soviet Union might be able to enter production within a few years. The weapon therefore bore both on the immediate war and on the future balance of power, even as Truman negotiated with Stalin.

On July 26, after the conference had been put on hold, Truman and Byrnes decided to release the Potsdam Declaration. Issued in the names of Truman, Attlee, and Chiang Kai-shek, it promised humane treatment for the Japanese people and said they would not be enslaved as a race or destroyed as a nation. It called for the elimination of Japan’s capacity to wage war and for the formation, through free elections, of a responsible government inclined toward peace; occupation forces would then withdraw. The declaration used the phrase unconditional surrender only for Japan’s armed forces, not for the nation as a whole. It left the future of Emperor Hirohito unspecified and warned of prompt and utter destruction without explaining what that destruction might entail.

Agreements and Aftermath

One consequential arrangement reached during the conference concerned Southeast Asia. Truman, Churchill, and their combined chiefs of staff agreed to divide Vietnam, or Indochina, for operational purposes: Chinese forces would be responsible north of the sixteenth parallel and British forces to the south. The arrangement left little prospect of Vietnam’s unification or independence and opened the way for the French to return. Truman informed Patrick J. Hurley, the American ambassador in China, by secret cable on August 1, the conference’s last day. The decision did not seem especially important to Truman amid the other military and political matters before him, but its implications extended well beyond the immediate conference.

At the closing session, Truman sincerely expressed the hope that the next meeting would be held in Washington. Stalin answered, “God willing,” and commended Byrnes for working exceptionally hard and well. The leaders shook hands and exchanged wishes for good health and safe journeys. Truman and Stalin never met again. Potsdam thus ended with the appearance of a completed conference but without resolving the deep disagreements that had shaped it: the participants could agree on wording, boundaries, and temporary military arrangements while remaining divided over the political future those decisions would produce.