Tehran Conference

5 Key excerpts on "Tehran Conference"

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  Guide to International Relations and Diplomacy

  • Michael Graham Fry, Erik Goldstein, Richard Langhorne(Authors)
  • 2002(Publication Date)
  • Continuum

    (Publisher)

  In stimulating and furthering discussion regarding the post-war world, the Moscow Conference eased the way for the first Big Three meeting between Churchill, Stalin and Roosevelt, at Tehran in November 1943. 280 CRISES AND MEETINGS Teheran Conference, 1943 This wartime conference took place between US President Franklin D. Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Soviet leader Josef Stalin between 27 November and 1 December in 1943. The Teheran con-ference was probably the most cooperative and productive of all the three-and four-way Allied summit meetings during and immediately after the Second World War. Roosevelt had come to believe that it was important that he establish a personal working relationship with the Soviet leader, and that the three principal Allied leaders meet as soon as practicable to discuss military strategy and post-war possibilities. Churchill, who had already got to know Stalin quite well, did not share Roosevelt's sense of urgency. The British Prime Minister thought it more important that the USA and the United Kingdom first increase the frequency of their bilateral contacts. A compromise was reached, according to which a three-way meeting in Teheran would be preceded and followed by bilateral talks in Cairo. Arriving from Cairo on 27 November, Roosevelt received a visit from Stalin on the afternoon of the following day. Roosevelt had steadfastly refused to hold a prior meeting with Churchill, which Roosevelt thought might have suggested to Stalin some sort of Anglo-American conspiracy. Roosevelt came away from the tete-a-tete pleased with himself and with Stalin. Their tour d'horizon had covered conditions on the Russian front, China, India, France, Indo-China and the possibility of a post-war exchange of American merchant ships for Soviet raw materials. At the first plenary, which began immediately thereafter, the principal topic was military plans.

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  The Major International Treaties of the Twentieth Century

  A History and Guide with Texts

  • John Grenville, Bernard Wasserstein(Authors)
  • 2013(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  X  ·  The wartime conferences and the surrender of Japan, 1943–45 The conferences The Allied conferences from 1943 to 1945 attempted to reconcile the wartime military policies of the Allies with an agreed programme of post-war settlements in Europe and Asia. For the sake of the maximum possible degree of military cooperation which was necessary to defeat the powerful and fanatically tenacious German war effort, fundamental Allied differences were not allowed to develop into major rifts. At the Yalta Conference the great power interests of Britain, the United States and the Soviet Union largely determined the post-war settlements not only of defeated enemies but also of the smaller Allies. At Yalta, the Big Three displayed at least an outward show of unanimity of purpose and wartime comradeship. By the time of the Potsdam Conference a few months later the Allied differences which developed into the ‘cold war’ were already strongly in evidence. The thirteen major Allied conferences of this period fall into two divisions: (1) predominantly Anglo-American, and (2) three power conferences between the Soviet Union, Britain and the United States, sometimes with other countries present. The table on pages 262–3 summarizes their sequence. The first two important conferences of 1943 endeavoured to coordinate British and United States diplomacy and did not involve the Russians. From a political point of view the Conference of Casablanca (Churchill, Roosevelt, Combined Chiefs of Staff) 14–25 January 1943 was notable for the attempt made to bring together Generals Giraud and de Gaulle; also for the ‘unconditional surrender’ call as the only terms the Allies would offer their enemies

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  Soviet Diplomacy And Negotiating Behavior

  The Emerging New Context For U.s. Diplomacy

  • Joseph G. Whelan(Author)
  • 2019(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  Chapter V — Negotiations Under Stalin: During World War II, 1939-1945

  Part II — Major Wartime Conferences: From the Moscow Conference of 1942 to Yalta in 1945 and Descent Into the Cold War

  Watch for their self-interest. And take care of our own. They're mighty skillful negotiators, with all the trumps. * * * They don't ever give anything away, Mr. Secretary, not even for something.

  —U.S. Ambassador Standley to Secretary of State Hull on the eve of the first Foreign Ministers Conference, October 1943.

  * * * Soviet officials are Intelligent and shrewd traders. They do not permit sentiment to play a part in negotiations in which the interests of the Soviet Union are involved. There is no such thing as banking good will in Russia. Each proposition is negotiated on its merits without regard to past favors.

  —General John R. Deane, 1946.

  III. Major Wartime Conferences

  A. CHURCHILL -HARRIMAN MEETING WITH STALIN , AUGUST 12-15, 1942

  1. Purpose of the Conferences

  (a ) Major wartime conferences

  Beyond specific negotiations for lend-lease and the various types of military cooperation, wartime diplomacy, notably at the Summit, focused mainly on military and political problems of maintaining the coalition, conducting a global war, and devising political arrangements for the postwar world. Major wartime conferences of the allied leaders were held in Moscow (1942), Teheran (1943), Yalta (1945), and Potsdam (1945). The Foreign Ministers of the Grand Alliance met in special conferences in 1943 and again in September and December 1945. This chapter examines in some detail three of these conferences, the Churchill-Harriman meeting with Stalin in 1942, and the Summit conferences at Teheran (1943) and Yalta (1945) in which Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin were the principal negotiators.

  (b ) Decision against second front

  Prime Minister Winston S. Churchill conferred with Stalin in Moscow during August 1942. On Churchill's insistence, Harriman, then in London as a coordinator of military assistance to Britain, participated on behalf of President Roosevelt.1

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  Guide to U.S. Foreign Policy

  A Diplomatic History

  • Robert J. McMahon, Thomas W. Zeiler, Robert J. McMahon, Thomas W. Zeiler(Authors)
  • 2012(Publication Date)
  • CQ Press

    (Publisher)

  Pleased with the confirmation of the western front, Stalin stated that the Red Army would coordinate a major offensive with the Allied landings at Normandy. He also confirmed the Soviet Union’s participation in the world organization and the war against Japan. After much discussion, Roosevelt and Churchill agreed to move the Soviet Union’s western border farther westward, which meant incorporating the Baltic States and territories that once had been part of Poland and Germany. Poland would be compensated by shifting its west-ern border farther west, taking over German territory. When the conference ended, Roosevelt and Stalin left Tehran pleased with having achieved their primary goals. The British delegation was less content. Churchill’s Mediter-ranean strategy had been rejected, and he and the British delegation were upset by Roosevelt‘s attitude toward them. The president had on several occasions appeared to berate Churchill and the British, seemingly to gain Stalin’s approval. The Anglo-American special relationship was changing, and Roosevelt and the American delegation appeared more will-ing than before to take an independent line from British views and interests. To the world, however, the three leaders promoted their unity, releasing a unified message: “We have concerted our plans for the destruction of the German forces. . . . We came here with hope and determination. We leave here friends in fact, in spirit and in purpose.” 6 Bretton Woods and Dumbarton Oaks The success of the Tehran Conference rested on finalizing military strategy, the conduct of the war, and postponing serious discussions about constructing postwar Europe. Over the next months, especially following the successful invasion of Normandy on June 6, 1944, American diplomats turned to considering the best way to reconstruct Europe and the world after the victory over the Axis.

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  The United States And World War II

  • Robert J Maddox(Author)
  • 2018(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  Roosevelt shared President Wilson’s enthusiasm for a world organization but not his reliance upon collective security. Disillusioned by the failure of the League of Nations, FDR had become convinced that only the large nations possessed the ability to take prompt and effective action against aggression. The world body he envisioned would be open to all, but decisions involving steps such as a blockade or the resort to arms would be reserved for a council made up of the United States, Great Britain, the Soviet Union, and China (which he hoped would overcome its weakness). These “four policemen,” to use his phrase, would enforce peace throughout the world. The success of what would become known as the United Nations depended upon full Soviet cooperation.

  The Teheran Conference

  Stalin had declined to attend the Casablanca Conference on the grounds that he was needed at home to manage the war effort. Roosevelt finally had a chance to meet him at the Teheran Conference, which began in late November 1943. Sure of his own persuasiveness, the president believed he could convince Stalin of America’s sincerity. FDR’s much-vaunted charm does not translate well in printed accounts; it consisted largely of jokes and quips, often at Churchill’s expense. Stalin’s responses led him to believe he had succeeded, and he later told an aide that the more he teased the prime minister, the more Stalin warmed up, until at last he “broke into a deep, heavy guffaw.… The ice was broken and we talked like men and brothers.” That Roosevelt succeeded in doing anything other than encouraging Stalin to exploit Anglo-American differences is unlikely.

  Aside from the decision to launch the much-delayed cross-channel invasion by the spring of 1944, most of the discussions at Teheran were exploratory. They did, however, permit all parties to state their positions on issues that would have to be negotiated into firm agreements later. Roosevelt also took the opportunity to informally convey to Stalin his ideas about a United Nations. Although the talks were cordial for the most part, they revealed some differences that would emerge to undermine solidarity within the Grand Alliance.

  With regard to Europe, questions of policy toward Germany and Poland dominated the conversations. All three leaders agreed that nazism and militarism would have to be uprooted and that Germany must be made to pay for the destruction it caused. In addition, all favored some sort of dismemberment to keep Germany weak, but they differed over how radically this should be carried out.

  Poland caused more controversy. Stalin made it clear that he intended to insist upon a Soviet-Polish boundary roughly corresponding to what the USSR had seized in 1939 and that Poland be compensated with territory taken from Germany. He made it equally clear that he wanted a “friendly” Polish regime on the Soviet border, rather than the London-based Polish government in exile, which six months earlier had accused the Soviets of murdering nearly 5,000 Polish officers taken prisoner in 1939 (the allegation was true). Although Churchill agreed on the matter of territorial compensation, he supported the London Poles as the legitimate government. Roosevelt said little during the sessions but privately informed Stalin that he sympathized with Soviet desires. He also said he could not be a party to any agreement because he did not wish to offend voters of Polish descent prior to the elections in 1944.

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