Hippocampus United States History: U.S.-Soviet Relations

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Throughout much of World War II, the U.S. and the USSR were reluctant allies. Germany posed a significant threat to both countries and necessity dictated that they cooperate militarily. Germany had launched a brutal invasion into the Soviet Union that eventually caused the deaths of 20 million Soviets. The USSR begged the western Allies to attack the German army on its western front. The U.S. and England were under-resourced and unwilling to launch a costly attack on the Germans. Instead, the western Allies engaged the Germans on other fronts, allowing the Soviets to regain lost territory and push the Nazis back. The U.S. and the Soviet Union had vastly differing political philosophies and their relationship was strained until it finally began to break apart during the later part of the war.

When a victorious conclusion to the war with Germany seemed inevitable, Roosevelt, Stalin, and Churchill met at the Yalta Conference in February 1945. They made strategic plans to defeat Germany and began discussing crucial postwar issues. Stalin agreed that the Soviet Union would allow Poland, Bulgaria, and Romania to have free democratic elections after the war. Upon the conclusion of the war, Stalin quickly broke his promise and installed communist governments in these countries without even the pretense of an election. The U.S. and its allies were stunned at Stalin's betrayal and feared that the Soviets would attempt to expand communism throughout Europe. Stalin claimed that he was doing nothing wrong and that securing the loyalty of the Soviet Union's western neighbors would help insulate the Soviet Union against future hostilities. Resentment continued to grow as both the U.S. and the USSR viewed the other as treacherous and dangerous.

Another of Stalin's broken promises was to remove troops from Iran after the war. Iran was rich in oil and was an important ally for both the U.S. and the Soviet Union. The Soviets stationed troops in Iran during the war to secure the Middle East and prevent German attacks. At the Tehran Conference in 1943, all of the major Allies agreed to remove troops from Iran. However, the Soviets still had troops stationed there in 1946, a full year after the war. Stalin went so far as to use his military to support and aid a rebellion in Iran in 1946. Truman was furious about Stalin's betrayal. Americans grew distrustful of the Soviets and began to worry that the USSR intended to spread communism to the Middle East.

Despite his recent electoral defeat in England, Winston Churchill remained popular in the United States. Churchill delivered a powerful and controversial speech at Fulton, Missouri in March 1946. He condemned Stalin and the Soviet Union as opportunistic and dangerous to western nations, and he coined the phrase "the Iron Curtain" in reference to the vast divide between the Soviets and the West. American opinion was sharply at odds over Churchill's speech. Many U.S. leaders desired cooperation with the Soviet Union, and they were upset by Churchill's remarks. A majority of Americans feared the expansion of the USSR, and Churchill's comments increased the seriousness of the Soviet threat in many American minds.

WWII put the U.S. in a new and unfamiliar role. Having previously chosen to remain relatively isolated, America was now cast as a world leader. American leaders quickly realized that a plan was required to address the Soviet Union. George F. Kennan was a brilliant U.S. diplomat and an expert on the Soviet Union. In 1946, he was stationed in Moscow, and the State Department asked him to clarify recent Soviet conduct. The world had never seen a threat like communism or a nation that behaved as the Soviet Union did, and the West was confused about how to address these issues. Kennan was one of the few western experts on the Soviet Union, and he was essentially tasked with creating a policy that would be used to deal with the Soviet threat.

Kennan drafted his response to the State Department in a telegram in February 1946. His reply was 8,000 words and contained significant coverage of the issue. The length and breadth of his reply earned it the nickname the "Long Telegram." He painstakingly covered the history of the USSR and how it had shaped current policies. He provided information that helped American leaders gain a greater insight into the background and mentality of Soviets like Stalin. He advised that the USSR was "ruthlessly expansionary" but also cautious. Kennan stated that if left unchecked the Soviets would expand their regime whenever and wherever possible. He also believed that the Soviet Union's cautious nature allowed the U.S. to avoid actively engaging the Soviets militarily to keep them in check. It was his belief that a policy of "firm and vigilant containment" could control the Soviet threat. Kennan's telegram helped form the basis of America's containment policy toward the Soviet Union.