Seventeen Days

In 17 days at Potsdam, the Big Three made surprisingly little news (much of what they did and said had already been decided and predicted). But they made history of a sort:

P: Big Three relations had entered a phase where a less spectacular channel than conferences of heads of state was required.

Accordingly, a continuing Council of Foreign Ministers, with France and China participating, was set up to draft peace settlements which might substitute for a general peace conference. The new council, with its permanent secretariat, would sit in London.

P: Subterfuge no longer obscured Russia's intention to dominate Eastern Europe. The communique tacitly recognized the new Poland's status as a satellite of Russia. Reasonable on some points, Stalin and his delegation were more stubborn than they had ever been before on everything concerning Poland and the Balkans.

P: The western democracies were determined to wedge their philosophy into the document. Under Truman's leadership, that philosophy was recognized in references to free access to the news of eastern Europe; to "free and unfettered" elections in Poland; to a democratic Germany. Some of those checks would be hard to cash. Even so, the three signatures on them meant something to a world recovering from one totalitarian menace and fearful of another.

P: Even at this stage, one and a half years after Teheran, the Big Three were not prepared to settle such questions as the Dardanelles, the Adriatic (Trieste), the former Italian colonies, the Russian evacuation of Iran, or even Austria. But delegates felt that the powers were moving toward some sort of agreement on most of these issues. On only one such point was complete agreement already achieved: Franco Spain was beyond the pale.

P: Last week Russia was not ready--if she ever would be--to go to war with Japan. Events in the Pacific and Asia, rather than a conference decision, would be likely to dictate Russian action.

P: The Big Three had no intention of letting Germany rise again. They had said so at Yalta. At Potsdam they spelled out a German control plan (mostly of U.S. origin) which added up to the greatest of all experiments in Big Three cooperation and planned security (see below).

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