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Winston Churchill, Harry Truman, and Joseph Stalin at Potsdam
On succeeding to the presidency after the death of Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman was conscious of how unprepared he was, saying that he felt "like the moon and stars had fallen on him"; even as vice president he had not known about the development of an atomic bomb. Nonetheless, he was determined in his first foray into international relations to hold his own against Churchill and Stalin. The war in Europe had ended in May, and the Big Three met at Potsdam (outside Berlin) in July to discuss the ongoing war in the Pacific and postwar diplomacy in light of the agreements reached at Yalta the previous February. Truman dropped a broad hint that the U.S. had a powerful new weapon.
The conference occurred during Britain's first postwar election. So the British delegation was led first by Churchill and then by Clement Atlee, who took over when the Labour Party swept into power.
Yevgeny Khaldei, 1945 |