Bush and Yalta

[MoMo]

Bush now seems to be saying that FDR was wrong to sign the Yalta agreement with Stalin and Churchill that effectively divided Europe into a Communist half and a non-Communist half (although Stalin did, at the time, promise to hold free elections in Eastern Europe -- for what little that proved to be worth).

Surely, the Soviet domination of Eastern Europe for a half-century was a great human tragedy.

But did FDR have any choice? What was he going to do -- have the GIs turn their guns on the Russians, and try to push them back to Moscow the way the Germans were utterly unable to do?

There is what's right, there is what's principled, there is what's ideal -- and then there is what's possible, practical, feasible.

Bush seems to be spending ever more time preaching ideals -- and maybe that's good in some ways, setting higher goals for people. But isn't he rewriting history to suggest that FDR had ANY other realistic option?

[Sebrle]

It's too bad the Yalta conference wasn't held on August 7th

http://www.bristolreads.com/images/the_soviet_union/the_soviet_union_57.gif

[mzungu]

I would be open to questioning FDR over Yalta, but timing has to be recalled. This was after working very closely with the Soviet Union for years and after yeomen efforts by the Soviet Union, plus it was a fait accompli, in the sense that the Soviets ALREADY held massive Eastern European territory, so we would have been ending one major war and beginning another war against a tremendous fighting force that had just routed the germans. that would have been a bloodbath, and then as soon as we drove them back past Poland, what then? If atom bombs were to be the threat, as sebrle suggests, that would have ended in several years when they got the bomb, and were we going to control that much territory? or, does bush propose to have actually gone all the way to moscow? a big task, no question.

[jersey_guy]

Putin still thinks Yalta was a great agreement and would love to bring it back. The irony is that Yalta, along with the rest of Ukraine, will be in NATO soon, and he can't do **** about it.