World War II — FDR, Yalta, Potsdam, and the Atomic Bomb: Quick Reference

FDR's worldview

  • Internationalist orientation; deliberate expansion of US presence on the world stage.

  • Key policies/pivotal actions:

    • 1939 Neutrality Act / Cash and Carry

    • 1940 Destroyer Deal

    • 1941 Lend-Lease

    • Atlantic Charter

  • Notable stances:

    • Did NOT intervene in Manchuria

    • Did NOT intervene in Ethiopia

FDR and Japan

  • Europe-first strategy

  • Economic sanctions and asset freezes debated as potentially influencing Japanese aggression

  • Summer 19411941: Japan invaded Indochina to seize military supplies

  • US response: stopped petroleum sales

  • Pearl Harbor attacked in December1941December 1941

Atlantic Charter

  • Context: issued in August1941August 1941, by Roosevelt and Churchill

  • Authors: US and UK leaders

  • Audience: Allied nations and peoples seeking postwar order

  • Main points:

    • Self-determination for peoples

    • Disarmament and no territorial gains by victors

    • Free trade and economic cooperation

    • Security and freedom of seas

  • Significance: framework for postwar order and later UN principles

A day that will live in infamy

  • (Referenced as the Pearl Harbor turning point and rallying moment)

Stalin, FDR, Churchill

  • The Big Three; collaboration shaped wartime diplomacy and postwar planning

Declaration of Liberated Europe (principle excerpt)

  • Right of all people to choose their form of government

  • Allied powers to assist liberated/former Axis states to establish democratic, representative interim governments with free elections as soon as possible

Yalta outcomes

  • Soviet Union will join Pacific War within 33 months of victory in Europe

  • Postwar occupation of Germany, including the French zone

  • German reparations determined

  • Future Eastern European governments expected to be friendly to the Soviet Union

  • Stalin will allow free elections in liberated territories

  • Polish national government to include some communists

  • Soviet Union gets veto on UN Security Council

Postwar maps and zones (Germany/Europe)

  • Berlin divided among four occupation sectors (US, UK, USSR, France) with corresponding zones

  • Four occupation zones established in Germany; implications for postwar order

Potsdam outcomes

  • Demilitarization and partition of Germany into four occupied zones

  • Occupiers can only exact reparations from their own zone

  • Poland compensated for territory lost to USSR with German territory

  • Forced deportations contributing to DP crisis

  • Atomic bomb conversations begin/adapt to postwar planning

(Re)considering the bomb

  • Why Truman dropped the bomb:

    • To spare lives (American and Japanese)

    • To end the war quickly

    • To prevent a Soviet occupation of Japan (trust in Stalin was low)

Hiroshima/Nagasaki context

  • August 6, 1945: Hiroshima; August 9, 1945: Nagasaki

  • Truman’s stated rationale in the Potsdam ultimatum and aftermath

Truman quote (Potsdam ultimatum era)

  • "It was to spare the Japanese people from utter destruction that the ultimatum of July 26 was issued at Potsdam. Their leaders promptly rejected that ultimatum. If they do not now accept our terms they may expect a rain of ruin from the air…"

  • 19451945

Szilard petition, July 17,194517, 1945

  • Warning about the development of atomic power and its destructive potential:

    • "The development of atomic power will provide the nations with new means of destruction… there is almost no limit to the destructive power which will become available… a nation which sets the precedent of using these newly liberated forces of nature for purposes of destruction may have to bear the responsibility of opening the door to an era of devastation on an unimaginable scale."