.

.

ex

POTSDAM AGREEMENT ON GERMAN REPARATIONS, POTSDAM, AUGUST 1, 1945: . . . Reparations claims of the U.S.S.R. shall be met by removals from the zone of Germany occupied by the U.S.S.R., and from appropriate German external assets. . . . The U.S.S.R. undertakes to settle the reparation claims of Poland from its own share. . . . the claims of the United States, the United Kingdom and other countries . . . shall be met from the Western Zones. . . . In addition to the reparations to be taken by the U.S.S.R. from its own zone . . . the U.S.S.R. shall receive additionally from the Western Zones: . . . 15 per cent of such usable and complete industrial capital equipment as is unnecessary for the German peace economy . . . in exchange for an equivalent value of food, coal, potash [etc.]. [and] 10 per cent of such industrial capital equipment as is unnecessary for the German peace economy . . . without payment or change of any kind in return. The agreements covering the disposal of the German navy and merchant marine provided an equal distribution of vessels among the Big Three allies, except for submarines, all but thirty of which were to be sunk and these thirty to be divided equally among the three nations. Territorial agreements included the approval of a plan to transfer the City of Königsberg, in East Prussia, to the Soviet Union. The western frontiers of Poland were drawn provisionally along the lines of the Oder and Neisse Rivers, giving Poland certain areas of East Prussia and the former free city of Danzig. A number of other portions of the Potsdam agreements are of passing interest and the whole document bears study by the close observer of the events of the summer of 1945. However, only one other paragraph merits quotation here because of its pertinence to later discussions. 12

Territorial changes in Germany

POTSDAM AGREEMENT ON IRAN, POTSDAM, AUGUST 1, 1945: It was agreed that allied troops should be withdrawn immediately from Tehran, and that further stages of the withdrawal of troops from Iran should be considered at the meeting of the Council of Foreign Ministers to be held in London in September 1945.

The discussions at Potsdam ranged over a large field of subjects. The relations between the principals were friendly and cooperative. Throughout the allied world the cordiality of those days augured well for the future. Russians and British and Americans sitting together around the council

12 See pp. 103-104 below.

The atomic bombing of Japan

Just after the Potsdam meetings ended, a new force was loosed on the earth. The atomic bombings of Hiroshima on August 6, 1945 and of Nagasaki on August 9, 1945, did more than convince the Japanese that their cause was lost. The new and unbelievably powerful agent of destruction-the atomic bomb-provided a factor that had to be considered in every conversation about peace, international organization, postwar military policies, and even life itself.

On August 8 the Soviet Union declared war upon Japan-just within the limits set by the Yalta agreements. Soviet troops moved quickly

Japan offers to surrender

into Manchuria and Korea. On August 10, 1945 the Japanese government informed the allies that Japan would surrender if the Emperor was allowed to retain his throne. Four days later an agreement was reached permitting the Emperor to remain, but placing him under the orders of the supreme commander of the allied forces. Hostilities ceased on August 14, 1945, except in isolated spots where some mopping up was necessary. The final terms of Japan's surrender were signed aboard the American battleship Missouri in Tokyo Bay amid pomp and ceremony on September 2,

1945.

Japan surrenders to the allies

TERMS OF JAPANESE SURRENDER, TOKYO BAY, SEPTEMBER 2, 1945: We... hereby accept the provisions set forth in the declaration issued . . . on 26 July 1945, at Potsdam. . . . We proclaim the unconditional surrender to the Allied Powers . . . of all Japanese armed forces. . . . We . . . command all civil, military and naval officials to obey and enforce all proclamations, orders and directives. . . by the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers. . . . We . . . undertake... to carry out the provisions of the Potsdam Declaration in good faith. . . . We . . . com

13 Equally friendly relations appeared to prevail among the military leaders of the allied powers. And frequent pleasant encounters between western and Soviet personnel of all ranks were reported during the first months of peace.

mand the Japanese Imperial Government . . . at once to liberate all allied prisoners of war and civilian internees. . . . The authority of the Emperor and the Japanese Government to rule the state shall be subject to the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers who will take such steps as he deems proper to effectuate these terms of surrender.

With this act the war of 1939-1945 was over. The United States had emerged from the 45 months of its involvement

A vision of world peace

un

scathed physically. Together with the British, the Americans had developed a weapon that far out

weighed the potentialities of anything used by any of the other warring powers. Along with nearly 50 other nations the Big Three had created a new mechanism which they hoped would insure the preservation of peace. The character of this organization, its promises, its formation, its structure, its accomplishments-the hopes with which it was born-are part of the story of the next section of this discussion of America's place in a world suddenly rendered fragile and perishable by the fact of the atomic bomb.

1. Wartime Plans for Postwar

International Organization

Implicit in the acts of the war period and in public declarations by American leaders was the intent of the United States to take a leading part in the formation of the postwar organization of world nations. Some of these actions and declarations have already been noted, especially the United Nations Declaration of 1942, the statements following the Moscow, Tehran, and Yalta conferences, and the speeches of Secretary Hull and President Roosevelt.1 Other wartime events indicated the concern felt in the United States for the establishment of world order after the victory.

Since Congress, and notably the Senate, had been one of the most effective agents in 1919 in preventing American membership in Congressional the League of Nations, it is signifiresolutions cant to note that two of the earliest favor creation official expressions of intent came of a world from that body: one a resolution organization offered by Representative William Fulbright, of Arkansas, in the House in September 1943; the other a resolution introduced into the Senate in November 1943 by Tom Connally, Senator from Texas and Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Relations.

THE FULBRIGHT RESOLUTION, WASHINGTON, SEPTEMBER 21, 1943: . . . RESOLVED by the House of Representatives (the Senate concurring), that the Congress hereby expresses itself as favoring the creation of appropriate international machinery with power adequate to establish and to maintain a just and lasting peace, among the nations of the world, and as favoring the participation of the United States therein through its constitutional processes.

1 See especially pp. 80-82 and 87-92 above.

THE CONNALLY RESOLUTION, WASHINGTON, NOVEMBER 5, 1943: ... RESOLVED . . . That the United States, acting through its constitutional processes, join with free and sovereign nations in the establishment and maintenance of international authority with power to prevent aggression and to preserve the peace of the world. That the Senate recognizes the necessity of there being established at the earliest practicable date a general international organization, based on the principle of the sovereign equality of all peace-loving states, and open to membership by all such states. . .

While these resolutions did not bind the Congress to accept any form of international organization at the close of the war, they did create the presumption that the United States, through the duly elected representatives of its people, would participate in a postwar international body.(50) This, of course, was a great advance over the position taken by powerful segments of the American Congress in 1918-1919.

Additional evidence that the United States would be in the center of international affairs

representatives of 44 nations allied in the war

against the axis powers.2

During 1944 planning for a postwar international organization went on at an accelerated pace. The State Department had a planning group working under the general direction of Dr. Leo Pasvolsky, of the Brookings Institution. The British also established a planning staff with Charles K. Webster, leading diplomatic historian, in charge. Russian, Chinese, and other national groups studied possible plans, although not too much has been revealed as to the nature of early planning activities in countries in other than the Anglo-American sphere.

The
Breton Woods
Financial
Conference,
1944

At Breton Woods, New Hampshire, more than 1300 delegates from 44 countries met from July 1 to 22, 1944 as the United Nations Monetary and Financial Conference to discuss plans for international cooperation in the economic field. The Breton Woods conference issued two lengthy and complicated articles of agreement on July 22, 1944. One of these articles provided for the establishment of an International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, capitalized at $9,100,000,000, of which the United States was to contribute more than three billions. The second article provided for an International Monetary Fund to which the United States would contribute two and three quarters billions in a total of $8,800,000,000. This fund would be used to grant loans to help stabilize national currencies and ease the burdens of international payments. The large assessments upon the United States represented recognition of this country's commanding position in world economy. However, the remaining member nations were to contribute in proportion to the World Bank and the Monetary Fund. The U.S.S.R., for example, was to subscribe $1,200,000,000 to the Bank and a like amount to the Fund. The United Kingdom was assessed $1,300,000,000 for each, and China $600,000,000 for the Bank, $550,000,000 for the Fund.

Foremost in the minds of the planners, of course, was the nature of the political organization which would be necessary over and above economic, agricultural, relief, and other require

2 See p. 82 above.

The Dumbarton Oaks Conference, 1944

ments. When the planning in the various countries had reached a stage at which international discussion could profitably take place, the Big Four-the United States, the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union, and China-sent representatives to Washington to meet at Dumbarton Oaks, a suburban estate in Georgetown. These meetings extended from August 21 to October 7, 1944.

At Dumbarton Oaks, the delegates drafted a provisional charter for the world organization. This draft was necessarily incomplete and while many of its provisions were later incorporated into the United Nations charter there is no point here in setting forth the content of the Dumbarton Oaks proposals in detail. The very delicate subject of voting power in the Security Council was not settled at the conference. Both Soviet Russia and the United States were reluctant to agree to any procedure which would deny them the right to veto actions directed against them by other members of the Council. Other obstacles to ready agreement also came up at the conference. Full debate, therefore, was postponed until a later conference at which all prospective members could be represented by voting delegates. Nevertheless, the Dumbarton Oaks meetings accomplished a great deal by getting down on paper a draft of the proposed organization which could be studied, criticized, improved upon, and could furnish a definite basis for debate at the later sessions.

Enough has been said to demonstrate that no proposed international organization had been the subject of so much advance study and planning.