all three. our meeting on the crimea has reaffirmed our common determination to maintain and unity of purpose and action which has made victory possible and certain for the united nations in this war. we believe that this is a sacred obligation which our governments hold to our peoples and to all peoples of the war. , franklinurchill roosevelt, joseph stalin. >> history professor gnter bischof explores world war ii allied summits in quebec and moscow which preceded the yalta conference. he reviews the postwar decisions

made during these meetings in the political leaders in attendance. the national world war ii museum hosted the event. >> greetings. it's a pleasure to see you all here. see --ways great to probably all are familiar faces. we saw most of you in november and hope to see most of you again in november and in between in september for our memory conference. stephen had said unfortunately dr. stoler tried his best. slipped on the way and caught his balance. all three flights from burlington, vermont were cancer to get him here yesterday. disappointed, he is even more disappointed that he couldn't make it back down here and present. we arean tell you that very fortunate in this great city to have one of the leading scholars in this field here to

fill the breach. and enlighten us with the first panel of the day. he has been a friend since before we had a building. not just a hotel, but an actual museum. he goes back with nick mueller and stephen ambrose all the way to the early days as a master student affairs and then went to to obtain -- harvard his phd and then came back home to join the faculty at unlv. -- uno. has just retired from being a lifelong schoolteacher and she is also very involved with our educational committee so it's great to have you. back,entioned going way we have heard lots of suggestions from dr. bischoff over the years and we have listened to them and we have enacted them slowly.

a couple of things that today really points out to me is the students. no --nds at unl also with younger scholars. those who may be postdoc or fresh out of the phd program. and to look at a broader international perspective and try to bring in not just the american experience in our public programming. lastly he has been a long time advocate. thank you for everything you've done for us. the professor of history at the university of new orleans. he came here as an exchange student with a history degree and a masters's degree from you

and no. he has published too many books to put in one biography and edited many more and published thousands of articles. recently thest marshall plan since 1947, saving europe, rebuilding austria. him on our presidential counselors advisory board since before we had a board in 2006 and he's always a delight to be here. so let's welcome dr. gnter bischof to the podium to open our yalta symposium. thank you. >> good morning ladies and gentlemen. good to see many of you here. special shout out to our you and

no colleagues and students. it's sort of if you think about yalta fitting that our colleague mark stoler didn't make it out of vermont because it was very hard to get to yalta at the time in february 1945. you might know that roosevelt was already a very sickly man and he had to travel by ship from virginia to malta in the mediterranean 10 days and then a seven hour flight up to the northern part of the crimean peninsula and from there he took a car down to the palace in yalta, another four hours. this is a man that had all kinds of physical challenges. so keep that in mind. there was a number of other cities initially envisioned for a summit meeting.

churchill and roosevelt suggested for example of scotland, cyprus, sicily, alexandria or jerusalem if possible. stalin didn't want to leave the soviet union. when we talk about summits, this is a early tivoli recent phenomenon in international diplomacy. winston churchill as he coined many important concepts of 20th century political history also turned -- coined the term summitry. when there was a chase on and who would first clear the summit of mount everest. that sort of fired up the imagination of contemporary people. from that he sort of took term summitry. historian david reynolds has written an excellent book on 20th-century summits and the first big one was actually the munich

conference in 1938. yaltas before tehran and what we are going to talk about today. the way professor reynolds put it, it was made possible by air travel, made necessary by weapons of mass destruction and made into household news by the mass media. all three elements as crucial in modern summitry. into the very complete outline by dr. stoler and march you through it. of variouss sort summit conferences before the yalta summit and in his preliminary marks he was saying that the yalta conference is often considered to have been a peace conference but it was not. in war was still going on military matters had a high

place on the conference agenda he says. it appears only in retrospect as if it were a peace conference. he thinks this is due to the fact that there was no real post-world war ii peace conference the way versailles and the paris conferences in 1919 and world war i. so he wants to make that important point. not a peace conference. he also makes the point that many major political issues that haveon the yalta agenda previously already been discussed in many summit meetings. of theoves if not most major issues that had already been discussed in the tehran conference in november 1943. only a bit more than a year before yalta. of course there were many other conference by lower-level

diplomats and i would add to his many of the issues that were discussed by that big three or the foreign ministers were worked out by various planning committees. in great britain it was the foreign office research department in the foreign office which came out of chatham foreign research and press service at oxford. the british, i have looked at many of these documents with regard to postwar planning for austria and they are very complete and i think in the british case you can see that churchill took more of the suggestions of his planners than in the american case. in the united states, the council on foreign relations in new york again postwar planning even before the country was in the war. and when the u.s. finally joined the war in 1941, the planning

effort from the council on foreign relations was brought into the state department. many of the council experts were part of it. planning was done in 1942, 1943. very often the suggestions made by the experts were not picked up by roosevelt and carried out. in other words there were huge planning efforts going on in the anglo american world but also france once it had a government again and also in the soviet union there was planning going on. so think about the planning during world war ii as something whileuietly goes forward armies fight in the field and trying to defeat the nazis on the battlefield. now let's go into the outline

here. dr. stoler has to put together the most important conferences. highesteven on the level with roosevelt and churchill already begins in august 1941. the famous newfoundland conference when the atlantic charter was agreed on by a crucial wartime document agreed on by roosevelt and churchill. so again the united states was not in the war yet and already they were doing diplomatic planning for the future of the world. then there was a couple meetings. then a moscow meeting where churchill and stalin met in august and harriman was also president -- present. ambassadorevelt's and a crucial figure to all the

diplomatic goings-on between roosevelt and stalin. roosevelt and churchill met in casablanca in morocco in 1943 and stalin didn't come to that even though he was invited because it was out of the country as he put it. in casablanca an important decision was made, namely the unconditional surrender by roosevelt and stalin that determines the japanese could not surrender this time. this was the lesson of world war i conditionally that they have to surrender unconditionally at the end of the war. so crucial decision. meeting, this thing is not working. there we go.

meeting where a -- was being founded in 1943. that's very important for the postwar world. the united states rehabilitation administration set the hungry people particularly of central europe after world war ii in 1946. may be people only had a thousand calories a day. a very important meeting there. after tehran there was a meeting with chiang kai-shek for postwar planning and the far east. and of course important tehran meeting. that was in november of 1943. and then meetings that were very important for the postwar world, the bretton woods meeting in new

hampshire were all of the important decisions were made for the financial post world -- postwar order. out of this meeting, the dollar became the strongest currency in the world and other currency would be pegged to the dollar after the world -- after the war. meeting that mainly dealt with united nations matters. where the canada morgenthau plan was apparently decided. moscow in the soviet union, churchill flew there. he flew 107,000 miles during the war to get to these meetings. were flown ins converted bombers. unpressurized, unheated so the travel was not very comfortable at the time. if you think about all the

attending,urchill is i will talk about it a bit. moscow 1944 an important decision was made about how the balkans would be divided between the east and the west. a so-called percentage agreement. there was a san francisco meeting where the united nations was founded. there was also a big meeting in potsdam, germany at the end of the war where decisions were made about postwar germany including reparations decisions. you see it's a very long list of meetings that we are talking about. in all of these meetings important decisions were made about the postwar order. example, when they got to

moscow in october of 1943, the foreign ministers talked about whether the soviet union would come into the war in the far east. that is something that continued at yalta. he -- the moscow was also important for declaration on postwar austria. sort of found at postwar austria escape -- estate which had been gobbled up by the night sees in 1938. important decisions had been made about nazi germany already at tehran. important for a combined military strategy and for finally the so-called second front was being decided upon because stalin insisted on it.

it, thehink about united states had already landed in the british in africa and then in italy making their way up the boot in 1943. defeatedts had already the germans before moscow and at vitalgrad so while these progress was being made on the here they decided finally we are going to open up a second front six months at after the tehran conference. sounds -- in that sense , it was first promised in may of 1942 and now finally stalin insisted that it came about because he wanted to believe his armies in the east and upon stalin's insistence it finally was promised that there would be

a landing in france, operation overlord. and another one in the south of france, operation and. this would force hitler's into a two front war meaning he would have to fight in the west, too. was fighting in italy and the balkans and scandinavia. he had armies all over. so the big three met in tehran in november of 1943 and not only did the big three meet at the combined chiefs of staff met there as well meaning the military leaders of the british and the americans. you sort of see that the military matters were important as diplomatic matters for the postwar order.

so the polish issue was beginning to be discussed again. was one of the chief issues. for lynn's boundaries and future government, this was an issue the powers divided and when thisst conference went -- when churchill went to cairo and met , this conference business continued into 1944. an important decision was made in tehran that the so-called european advisory commission would be established in london and european advisory commission became a very important diplomatic body where forntially the boundaries germany and postwar austria were being established. important diplomats like george

f kennan, later ambassador in the soviet union represented the united states in the ac, an important decision coming out of tehran. at the quebec conference, the first one, the prime minister churchill and roosevelt also discussed the atomic bomb. they would say that the scientific efforts to achievements which came to fruition at the end of the work would remain an anglo-american monopoly and would not be shared by the soviets. that would be a sore point after the war that that information had not been shared with the soviets. if you think about these many diplomatic meetings prior to yalta, they were trying to decide on important issues like a new international organization to replace the league of nations

which had not been particularly successful collective security organization. as i said at dumbarton oaks, many of the issues were worked out. on the united nation's issue such as a future general assembly where the four policemen as roosevelt called them govern the united nations mean the premier powers in the world. the united states, great britain, the soviet union and .hina would dominate there would be a general assembly where all nations of the world will be represented but one of the sore points was the soviet union came up at yalta but it was discussed already earlier. the soviet union insisted they wanted to have all their 16 republics represented. in the general assembly. meaning georgia, ukraine, whatever would be representing as individual states would be

represented and churchill and roosevelt were not very excited about that. i'm not going to talk more about it because i'm sure dr. parkey will pick up that issue. veryuture of germany was a important discussion part in all of these conferences. namely the decision that germany would be occupied militarily i the big three after the war. there was an interesting incident in tehran where they were talking about the nazifi germany and stalin said the best way is to kill 50,000 officers. churchill was aghast at this sort of suggestion. we don't know if he set it in jest. it doesn't sound like it. roosevelt choked back 45,000 -- 49,000 is enough.

they had to talk about the future order of germany and what are we going to do with all of the nazis. nazification was a very important subject matter. in 1944, the american sector of the treasury henry morgenthau insisted on a severe treatment of germany, namely that germany would be passed or, would be de-industrialized so it could not be of threat to the future of the world again. this so-called morgantown plant was actually accepted by churchill in this conference. when the state department heard about it, they were aghast at pastor allies to germany because they knew very well that germany was the center of the continental european economy and that germany

deindustrialized would hurt everybody around them. so this strange thing, the morgantown plan was rejected and didn't come to fruition. we still don't know exactly how it came about but when idea that has been discussed was this was actually a soviet idea and that a high official in morgan thousand pressure a department -- treasury department was a soviet spy. finally one last important meeting before the yalta meeting is when churchill came to moscow in october of 1943. of course roosevelt couldn't come because he was in the middle of his fourth campaign for being really did. -- reelected. in this meeting, the infamous percentage agreement was agreed upon by the leaders. the percentage agreement said

this is something that apparently churchill wrote down checkedkin and stalin off the various percentages and they agreed upon them. sphere ofy a influence agreement traditional european diplomacy. saidpercentage agreement the soviet union should have 90% influence and west britain 10%. greece 90% influence for the british. 10% influence for the soviets. yugoslavia and hungary would be split 50-50 in terms of influence. in burglary the soviets would have 75% influence and the west 25%. note that poland is not part of this agreement. czechoslovakia is not part of it. austria is not part of it. certainly in terms of the future influence taking in eastern europe, it was very important what was agreed upon by these leaders. in moscow.

did roosevelt know about it? yes he did. because harriman was reported on the percentages and he reported back to washington and since roosevelt did not reject the percentages, stalin was led to believe that indeed it was sort of an agreement between the big three. so ladies and gentlemen, i think i'm going to stop here. ofs is dr. stoler's outline the pre-yalta conferences that took place where many of the important decisions that would figure at yalta on poland, germany and the postwar order and the united nations were already if not agreed-upon they were discussed. it was a process that was going anduring the whole war yalta of course can continued those discussions. if their questions i would be happy to answer them. >> dr. bischof, thank you very

much for starting this off here. [applause] i will be walking through the crowd with a microphone. i ask that you please stand before you ask western. -- ask your question. >> stalin's refusal to leave russia at the yalta conference, some kindgitimate or of maneuver otherwise? tell, it wasi can a maneuver. and churchillelt just as legitimately could have said, we can't leave our country because we have to be close to andmilitary decision-making that was stalin's principal reason. one reason why he probably only came to a meeting at yalta or tehran which was under soviet control at the time we think is that it gave him an opportunity to thoroughly bug the meeting

and the places where roosevelt and churchill would meet. so we think that these meeting rooms were bugged and that whenever churchill and roosevelt talk privately, stalin would have the transcripts of those talks the next evening. knowingery careful in what the other players would come up with and that intelligence advantage seemed to have been very important to him. i can see a reason why he wouldn't talk, couldn't travel to northern scotland for a summit meeting. it would certainly have been much easier for roosevelt to get to than the long way to -- keep in mind, yalta had just recently been liberated meaning the crimean peninsula. it had been gravely destroyed by the germans when they withdrew from crimea. down, heevelt drove saw that destruction all around him.

of placeill in a way to get to as well because there were still german mines around. it was somewhat dangerous to get there. >> dr. bischoff, to your right please. >> one of the things that influences yalta is how much the soviets figured they were doing the heavy lifting and way the west where the lightweights in the whole thing. can you comment on the relative contributions of the sides coming to yalta? >> the relative contributions diplomatically you mean? >> military contributions. >> well, that is a big question. speaking, let me actually -- he has a map here.

this might explain it better. ok,r the normandy landings, as you know the western armies very quickly moved up operation market garden, they were already threatening to break in and what we often forget, but what are international conferences have pointed out quite vigorously, part of the agreement was with tehran that the soviets would the attack in the east and operation happened a couple of weeks after the normandy invasion and you see that pushed the soviet red army into the east of:, so they were already outside of warsaw and fell close

to berlin. made enormous terms of whoin contributed more, that is an old discussion where i'm on the side that the red army probably contributed more because the germans had many more divisions siding in the east and in the west. keep in mind, there is not much happening in the west until the normandy landing. armies in normandy and france, panzer armies that could be shifted around if need be depending on where they landed, but in terms of german divisions, there was like 180 which were tied down into the east.

the big victories, the germans became much weaker and had fewer troops in the east, but i think in terms of the overall weight of the contribution of the final victory, you have to say given that the soviets are hiding, they probably made a larger contribution to the eventual defeat of the german army. we have a question online, it is a personal opinion question. but inprior to yucca, your mind is the most influential? >> think that would be the tehran conference where all three met an important military decisions were made and i think that would be the doctors view. , theecision was made

unconditional surrender was reconfirmed by the soviets as well, so i have to think that tehran was the most important meeting, but the sheer fact that .ll three of them met i will get to the question into your left and are the middle. >> three quick questions, one is presentation.your how did roosevelt and truman travel? in the postwar configuration of germany, how did france get involved when they were in the -- hungryand finally free and soviet, it finally worked out that the

soviets took over. how does that work? how and trumanto , i told you that truman got to yalta. truman still use an airplane. there was also made possible by more comfortable kinds of travel arrangements, so certainly in the post-world war ii world, roosevelt ily, but think because of his heart condition couldn't really fly i think thehe flew plane had to go 10,000 feet, very low which of course was

dangerous and you have to be careful of what territories they flew, so they could not fly 30,000 feet above the ground. with regards to france, i left that is oneause thing the doctor will talk about. the decision was finally decided in yalta because churchill insisted on it. he was afraid the united states would withdraw after the world -- the war, so he felt he would be left alone and he definitely one of the french to be on his side. of course, that made the french a great power again and made them a victorious power which in terms of the fighting, they were not.

that is why stalin was very reluctant to let the french command, but there was a lot of fighting already in the early meeting. s over how the zones should be made up. many small germany's being independent states again, rather than one strong germany, but that did not really come about. it was a consideration of maybe along the religious lines. the north protestant along those also a lot ofas rebuild some type of

habsburg state that would be part of the larger dismemberment issue in germany, but stalin wanted to have nothing because he felt it would be a new [indiscernible] an content. in the income of the united states had a zone in the southeast. therian and the french got zone in the southwest. germany got the north and the soviets got a zone in the northeast which would later on be the gdr. in that sense, out of the occupation came a sort of dismemberment meaning to germany's instead of one.

given a job -- a zone on british insistence and the advisory in and later adopted by the big three. your final question about hungary, it was 50-50. they areind this time, already close to budapest and there would be a big battle by defendingvigorously the red army from about january to march of 1945 and much of budapest was destroyed during the final battle. finally, the red army of april in 1945 would take over. the way that hungry developed is

there would be a free election and the agricultural party was strongest, they rolled, but in 1947 the communist party took , but in 1947ruled the commonest party took over. there was also british and budapest,ccupation in but the soviets dominated those places because they liberated up communists with postwar governments and that threaten to happen in austria because after vienna was mid-april of 1945,

a so-called provisional government was established in an old socialist leader had already been the head of state after world war i was brought back into power, but there was one third socialist and one third -- communist representation and stalin and roosevelt did not like that because there were supposed to be a joint government by all three powers, so from the west it looks like the same thing would happen indiana by what happen in budapest and elsewhere in the soviets were trying to set up the communist for ruling and interestingly enough, we iron of churchill's .urtain metaphor it that is when churchill spoke

to the world about the iron down downving rattled into the adriano, but he was already using that metaphor after the austrian events in 1945 that he was afraid the iron curtain was coming down but only inside documents. you could say it already broke .ut over austria and hungary --1945 when the government the soviets tried to force governments on these people. would you comment on a theement that doing thatety of world war ii 85% to 95% of the war was fought ?n the eastern front

>> good to see you here. he is the eminent historian of war two so one would hardly want to contradict him. the counselor of every year and i would not want to contradict him, but in a way he is putting numbers to what i was saying before that much of the fighting and dying from world war ii actually happened on the eastern front in if you talk to any german today, he --ld associated it is a figure he considered very thoroughly. so not contradict him, but i

think the trend line is clear that given the many german divisions in the east, that is decided. war is we need at the same time put it into proportion. can you please comment on the negotiation between churchill and stalin and the influence that occurred prior to the conference. was businesses or to give the soviets on board? of continuedment cooperation undermine the outcome of the conference in the post world war? for may be better question the doctor for the panel -- or the panel.

percentages came from churchill and stalin check them off and agreed, so in that sense whether churchill, i would have memoirs. the that is how the world heard about them first. i suspected that churchill a concession to stalin to humor him, see that the west was prepared to make concessions, but from the american perspective, it looked very bad because roosevelt did not want to see traditional european influence the promises to be continued and in that sense, roosevelt not being , hee, not shooting it down was not at the meeting, but he

heard about it later. eventually, the americans were thought to have signed on to it since they did not protest this kind of division, so i would say let's leave it at that for now and we can come back to it later. >> there's another question online that is elected, so i will paraphrase. in all of these previous conference summit meetings between the western allies, how fearful was stalin of what was being discussed, how forthcoming worthy western allies with moscow and telling what would be discussed on the agenda and so forth?so >> when>> we talk about stalin, you have to keep in mind the historians don't have access to any kind of documents and i think dr. blocky can confirm

.hat stalin is very hard to prove one way or the other of having agreed on this or that because he did not really talk much during the war, so we don't really know of all the big three. thenow that he did not like unconditional surrender made because he thought this was sort of indicating the degree of western cooperation that were tried to exclude the soviets. in other words, he would have liked to been part of that and he was not, but on the other hand we know there were others going out from moscow the a sweden and such to see whether

there were some type of correctional -- conditional surrender given the battles on the eastern front. we know that stalin was a very distrustful men and in a decision like an unconditional surrender decision that came out , but beyond that, i hope dr. blocky talks more about that. i would say it is difficult. right --r >> i would like to add a clarification. if you count only ground-floor are fairly we

certain that the russians accounted for two thirds of all german military deaths in the second world war. this case overlooks the fact that the allies destroyed the u-boat force, not the russians and the allies had the major role of destroying the luftwaffe. the russians forget that the air results through the best of the fighter force back into the defense of germany so therewas destroyed, was an indirect influence on the eastern front which in fact .avored the russians great footnotes . you have to check those out.

again, nobody would want to dispute him. that indeed, sometimes it is interpreted as the second front that had not opened earlier on the ground and i think a good argument in the onlythat so much, not manpower, but american wealth and british wealth went into the campaign that kept the germans offkilter. for example, if you think about ,he building of the fee weapons the german rockets and so forth,

initially they were tested on the north sea and when the british bomb that side, they had to relocate the effort underground. they put it in the mountains and they were put in tested in the , so if you look at individual production capabilities of the germans, you see how much the bombing would hurt. though a lot of american pilots and crews perished in the efforts and came in terms of numbers, it is much fewer than what is going on on the eastern front, but in terms of overall you have to

triple and quadruple those numbers. i was impressed by the length of the list of conferences and as you know, there has been ofcussion about the prospect bombing the death camps that were responsible for the holocaust. at which of any of these conferences was the subject of the holocaust discussed? was there any discussion about ?hat could be done about it >> by the time, auschwitz had in mind, in, but to my none of the conferences was the holocaust discussed.

i think we are quite sure today that they knew early on because german and soviet traffic could coatstened to meaning the were broken and through the broken codes, they heard a lot going on the eastern front about the killing of jews, so i think that puts them in the know as early as 1940 11 when the holocaust was beginning to unfold. they knew about it, but they did not discuss it. in terms of bombing auschwitz, i have nothing more. this was heavily discussed in

1995, 1994, the 50th anniversary conference of the enormity and think and i don't really there is much beyond what was said at the time, mainly we need to defeat the germans and the sooner we defeat them, the jewsr it will be for the so we don't want to squander our when it issources more important to defeat the nazis on the battlefield and as soon as they are defeated, the killing of the jews will end, but of course on the other hand, the nazis killed jews to the very end of the war. story follow the gruesome of the walk out of the , there weren camps

people killed to the very end of the war, so i think one could discuss whether one could have the more, but keep in mind holocaust, there were many death camps in the east and the concentration camps, you see this, they increasingly became death camps due to the severe treatments of inmates which was russian pows, all kinds of the nazisemies of .hat were brought there -- it sounds like a death camp too. with ourxt question audience, a quick follow-up was

when the united nations released didrevious conferences, this pertain to the jewish populations or was this for all of europe? >> it was for all the displaced people. keep in mind, the united states had experience in a sense that herbert hoover launched to defeat the people of europe and a lot of attention has been paid to the uber effort, sometimes compared to the postwar marshall plans. designed specifically not for jews, but for all the hungry people of the world, so if you take the german and austrian populations, i would say their survival could not have been

guaranteed. the u.s. army put a lot of eight mind they but keep in worked until 1947 and in the united states said we are paying the expenses and we have no control over what the united nations is doing, so we want to thet our own effort and andhall plan came out the --ed and war -- on anra. >> thank you. russian ahead for you. >-- next question ahead for you. >> looking at the map of europe, it is easy to understand why

soviet domination because czechoslovakia is there. -- >> that is what they said after the war. >> i was under the impression that the army was prepared to enter czechoslovakia and could have occupied before the soviets got there and they were called back. in any event, my question is why did a different result happened in czechoslovakia then in --tria -- then in austria in austria with different realms of influence? >> that is a long question, but a good one.

czechoslovakia also had a free but the after the war, communists came out the strongest party. why was that so? thelly, the answer is checks were still starting because of the munich agreement. they felt that they were sold down to the nazis which in many respects they were. the check leader in exile didady visited in 1943 and preliminary agreements because they felt like they needed to deal with the soviets directly. they cannot win the soviets and

i think that explains to good result ineir election , patentt you are right and the u.s. army, one of them had already been across the border, even though they could have liberated product, but that is the same kind of decision i thought, a river in germany had to do with the fact that there were wartime agreements, military leadership did not want to break with the soviets, so the soviets were already byerated, somebody a beginning of may next 45, it was not hard for them to get to prague. ingue is an interesting city the sense that it had suffered very do little -- bury little destruction.

churchill early on wanted to liberate those cities early on. a strategy that was down capital.he slovenian the strategy that churchill had 1944, on the americans in 1945. he says there is a gap here and let's go up because we cannot allow the soviets to liberate the ancient capitals of europe. said that is going to a strategy to lose too many

people, we have to cut through the mountains, so he did not want to see many resources. his strategy was to fight in the north and the west in southern france and of course, there was not enough landing boats, but churchill had seen it coming that if the red army liberates those places, they will impose their regime on it. whenever an army liberates, it will impose its border on that place and that is what it did all over eastern europe. to finally answer your question, what happened, why did it come under common is control? 1948, february, 82 --was a two --

coup.the communist seized the opportunity not to start a new government, but put themselves into place and onwards, we have the communists and control, so you could say after budapest, check a box you -- czech slovakia is being turned into a common is country as well and the ultimate irony tothat when it came time participate in the marshall plan, the checks would have loved to participate and said so in 1947, but stalin had called the leadership and told them no, you cannot participate. that might have been a preliminary step to go down on the common aside because in a way the marshall plan firmed up the iron curtain.

the country of eastern europe cannot participate in the marshall plan landed on the site that would economically go down and become poor, so it was a moment of great decision for the checks, but it would not allow them to participate, so that is coup in 1948- should not surprise us. for the west, it was a big warning signal and the western united states feared that this would be the new model of communist takeover in europe. czechoslovakian the verge from the inside

whether -- rather than direct andck from the red army they feared austria might be next on the list. i think we have time for one last question. for a have one from the audience. list.mmended reading the question was, what would you .ecommend to read not for yalta book, ind the best wonder whether my college would historian, hetish wrote the book that covers the negotiations from moscow to

weeks in the few fall of 1943. it is very good. has written about it too. i don't know if there are books that cover all of the conferences. there is considerable literature on yalta. agotoo long ago, two years at an international conference, we heard our bird friend talk about potsdam. much more could be written, but that is usually what happens. individual books on individual conferences that we don't really have a book that covers it all. by the way, an excellent introduction, debbie reynolds book has a second chapter that

is very good. >> for the audience watching at home, two of the best books that i have heard and read are both and allies inooks more, britain and america against the axis powers. had are top-notch and you mentioned professional or -- mentioned professor reynolds who wartimealk on correspondence with stalin, both from winston and from franklin, so that is relatively new and something that opened my eyes. >> there is also the conference between churchill and roosevelt, 1941 and the atlantic charter.

too.can be recommended >> last question from joe. >> thanks again for the presentation. going back to the travel aspect of all the conferences, was yalta's strategic place for stalin and the sense he could show off the disruption of dangerous was it more for churchill and fdr to travel to the conferences in the soviet union? >> i think yes on both of those questions. for stalin, he went all the way down to yalta. there was safe to him. to show off the destruction and remind his allies, future debates we have not mentioned

future debates, german reparations to remind western powers that the level of destruction of the soviet union is so immense that if they see it with their own eyes, they would be more forthcoming on german reparations, in other words the germans pay for reconstruction, but i think you are right. stalin did not care about the difficulty for churchill and roosevelt to get to yalta. that he would get there safely. >> i think we should not forget about that intelligence. applause, thank you. today on american artifacts, a visit to the seminole nation

museum in oklahoma. thee are the descendents of ancestors to the west and i want -- our maleshat were shackled and chained and brought to the west as prisoners of war. >> watch american artifacts c-span3.6:00 p.m. on >> tonight at nana caught p.m. ,astern, in his latest book columnists ask for -- and america's role as a superpower. he is interviewed by amanda carpenter. >> we are not each other's

said.s as lincoln argued, we are going to expire stop things are going great, but when things are looking great, it is time to shore up the foundations. >> watch tonight at 9:00 p.m. two.rn on c-span >> each week, american artifacts takes you to museums and historic basis to learn about american history. this looks at the national debate over the indian removal act and the impact on southern tribes. associate curator paul chaat smith leads us through the americans exhibit, which examines how indian imagery is prevalent in toys and mascots.