The Yalta Conference opens: 4 February 1945 Posted on: 4 February 2015 The Yalta Myth Between 4 and 11 February 1945, while the Second World War still raged Churchill, Stalin and Roosevelt at the Yalta Conference both in Europe and in the Far East, the (The National Archives) ‘Big Three’—Roosevelt, Stalin and Churchill—met at the Black Sea resort of Yalta, supported by large delegations, to discuss the shape of the postwar world. The agreements reached there, including arrangements for an occupied and denazified Germany, for a ‘World Organisation’ to ensure peace (the UN), for bringing the war in Japan to a successful conclusion and for the future of Eastern Europe, have been instrumental in ensuring that of all wartime Allied conferences, Yalta has retained the most negative resonance. The enduring Yalta Myth is that Europe was ‘carved up’ at the conference, to the advantage of the Soviet Union and at the expense of countries like Poland. Roosevelt and Churchill were ‘outwitted’ by Stalin, and condemned Eastern Europe to years of Soviet domination. The Big Three leaders played a game of power politics that rode roughshod over the rights of countries and individuals, including Prisoners of War for whom enforced repatriation could mean death. Promises were made that no one had any intention of fulfilling. Like all myths, these allegations contain an element of truth and provide a useful propaganda weapon. But they distort the reality of the situation. The Cold War cannot be laid at Yalta’s door, except in the sense that the decisions reached continued a longestablished direction of travel. Sir Frank Roberts, the veteran British diplomat who attended Yalta and was still giving fascinating talks about it up to his death in 1998, stressed that context was the key to understanding what happened at Yalta, in particular ‘place and timing’: the timing because the end of the war in Europe was then in sight and the place because it was so obviously under exclusively Soviet control and so far from Western eyes. Why Yalta? Holding the Conference at Yalta demonstrated Stalin’s power. Claiming his health would not permit air travel, the Soviet leader insisted on meeting at the Black Sea. So the ailing US President Roosevelt had to make an arduous journey of 6000 miles; Churchill, aged over 70, 4000 miles. After meeting in Malta on 2 February, Roosevelt and Churchill flew 1400 miles to the Crimea, followed by an eight-hour drive. In fact, Soviet organisation of the conference was good, but the choice of Yalta reflected, intentionally, a shift in the axis of world power.
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