Posted on 05/07/2005 8:50:22 AM PDT by cornelis
Bush: U.S. Had Hand in European Divisions By JENNIFER LOVEN
RIGA, Latvia - President Bush said Saturday the Soviet domination of central and eastern Europe after World War II will be remembered as "one of the greatest wrongs of history" and acknowledged that the United States played a significant role in the division of the continent.
Bush said the agreement in 1945 at Yalta among President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Soviet leader Josef Stalin and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill "followed in the unjust tradition of Munich and the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact." The decisions at Yalta led to the division of eastern Europe and creation of the Soviet bloc.
"Once again, when powerful governments negotiated, the freedom of small nations was somehow expendable," the president said, opening a four-nation trip to mark the 60th anniversary of Nazi Germany's defeat. "Yet this attempt to sacrifice freedom for the sake of stability left a continent divided and unstable."
"We will not repeat the mistakes of other generations _ appeasing or excusing tyranny, and sacrificing freedom in the vain pursuit of stability."
During a speech at a Riga cultural center, Bush commended the Baltic people for keeping "a long vigil of suffering and hope" during 50 years of oppressive Soviet occupation. He said the United States has a "binding pledge of the alliance" to protect the freedom of the Baltic nations.
"In defense of your freedom, you will never stand alone," he said before about 200 Latvian government and community leaders in the audience.
Bush's decision to bracket his trip to Moscow with visits to this Latvian capital and the ex-Soviet republic of Georgia prompted a letter of protest from Russia. Moscow views Bush's travel itinerary _ along with U.S. support for democratic change in Ukraine and Georgia _ as a sign of inappropriate meddling in its neighborhood.
The Yalta agreement carved up post-World War II Europe, giving Stalin the whole of Eastern Europe. The agreement led to much criticism of Roosevelt, who was accused of delivering Eastern Europe to communist domination. The meeting took place in Crimea, in the Soviet Union.
Russian President Vladimir Putin's government recently angered Poland by saying it should be grateful for the Yalta treaty, which consigned Poland to the Soviet sphere for decades.
Bush said the victory over Nazi Germany soon gave way to decades of standoff with the Soviet Union.
"The great democracies soon found that a new mission had come to us: not merely to defeat a single dictator but to defeat the idea of dictatorship on this continent.Through the decades of that struggle, some endured the role of tyrants, and all lived in the frightening shadow of war.
"Yet because we lifted our sights and held firm to our principles, freedom prevailed."
Bush met earlier with the leaders of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania and said afterward that Russia has no cause to be angry at U.S. involvement in democratic progress on its doorstep and suggested that Moscow recognize the lingering pain caused by the decades-old Soviet annexation of the Baltics.
"The idea of countries helping others become free _ I would hope that would be viewed as not revolutionary, but rational foreign policy and decent foreign policy and humane foreign policy," Bush said. "I think countries ought to feel comfortable with having democracies on their borders.
"I will continue to speak as clearly as I can to President Putin that it's in his country's interests that there be democracies on his borders," Bush said.
Bush acknowledged the Baltics' lingering resentment over the Soviet Union's 1940 annexation of their homeland that led to 50 years of oppressive occupation. Though Bush did not directly call for Putin to apologize, the White House hopes the president's high-profile dive into the matter will encourage the Russians to confront a dark spot in their history, in which the end of World War II saw the Baltics merely trade Nazi domination for communist rule.
Putin, writing in a French newspaper Saturday, said the Soviet Union already made amends in 1989 and his country will not answer the demands of Baltic states for futher repentance. "Such pretensions are useless," Putin wrote in Le Figaro.
Putin said the Baltic nations are just trying to get attention, justify discrimination against Russian-speakers who live there and "mask the shame of past collaboration" with the Nazis.
In his speech, Bush recalled that the United States continued to support the Baltic countries during Soviet oppression by flying the flags of free Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia _ illegal in those countries _ over diplomatic missions in the United States.
But he said that the defeat of Nazism was a paradox because it spread further captivity in Europe.
"The end of World War II raised unavoidable questions for my country: Had we fought and sacrificed only to achieve the permanent division of Europe into armed camps?" Bush asked. "Or did the cause of freedom and the rights of nations require more of us?
"Eventually, America and our strong allies made a decision: We would not be content with the liberation of half of Europe _ and we would not forget our friends behind an Iron Curtain," he said.
The Munich agreement resulted in the dismemberment of Czechoslovakia, and the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact consigned the Baltic republics to Soviet rule.
Lithuanian President Valdas Adamkus and Estonian President Arnold Ruutel both have chosen not to attend Moscow's World War II military parade in protest of Russia's refusal to say that the occupation was illegal.
Bush is going, but added the stop in Latvia and Georgia, two young democracies resisting Kremlin influence and turning West.
Bush flatly rejected the suggestion that Washington and Moscow work out a mutually agreeable way to bring democracy to Belarus _ the former Soviet republic that Bush has called the "last remaining dictatorship in Europe."
"Secret deals to determine somebody else's fate _ I think that's what we're lamenting here today, one of those secret deals among large powers that consigns people to a way of government," Bush said.
Bush called for "free and open and fair" elections set for next year in Belarus, now run by authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko.
Adamkus said Baltic leaders hope to introduce to other nations "some kind of dose of oxygen into the resistance and opposition that is striving for the same rights we are enjoying."
Adamkus also reassured Bush that the three Baltic nations were "staunch allies in the fight against terrorism." The three countries are some of the strongest supporters of the United States in Iraq, contributing only a combined 290 soldiers but recently deciding to extend their mission at a time whether others are scaling back or pulling out.
A service of the Associated Press(AP)
Heard his talk live this morning.
I hope GWB gets his historical due as a great foreign policy president. It will probably not happen in my lifetime.
He is absolutely eloquent when he speaks of freedom and liberty.
Great job, Mr. President.
Hindsight is 20/20. So in FDR's defense, Yalta was FDR's last chance to get the Soviet's to join us in the Pacific. The estimates at the time were that we were going to lose 1 million of our boys in the invasion of Japan's home islands. How many of our boys lives were the Baltics worth? or Eastern Europe?
Tough choices to make then, and we are making the same calculations today. How many of our boys, and girls, lives are worth the freedom of Afghanistan and Iraq, and the greater Middle East?
I think W has made the calcuation that if we don't act sooner, rather than later, the cost will be much higher, as we learned before, during, and after, WWII.
W seems to know his history.
JMHO.
Yalta primarily recognized the "facts on the ground." The US had no way to prevent the Red Army from taking over most of eastern Europe. The Red Army was needed to defeat Germany, which would necessarily require it to physically occupy Eastern Europe.
To remove the Red Army would have required another war, one that a war-weary American and British public would not have stood for. And one in which Allied victory would not necessarily be guaranteed.
While the US could not have prevented the occupation of Eastern Europe, it did not have to recognize it as valid.
And we had Patton for general instead of restorer. Was it you that told him he couldn't go on to Moscow?
General Patton wanted to keep his tanks rolling on to Moscow.
but you notice the headline IMPLIES it is all Bush's fault.
AP all spin all the time.
Not at the time of Yalta. We really did not know for sure whether it would work, nor how powerful it would be.
And I stand by my assertion that the American and British public would not have stood for another war. We are a democracy, you know.
I think it would even be possible to make a case that American soldiers would have been less than enthusiastic about fighting an Army they had just spent several years providing weapons to.
FDR was very sick at Yalta and looking more toward his legacy of creating the UN, and less toward supporting Winston Churchill. I can't get over the fact that Roosevelt was blinded to the dangers of "Uncle Joe".
Ever notice how when faced with facts that cannot be refuted the libs immediately go into a personal attack mode and then run for cover?
General Patton may have wanted to, but he would have been all by himself. His men would have mutinied, and their families at home would have backed them. There was a lot of negative reaction even to troops in the European Theatre being transferred to the Pacific. There's just no way the public was going to stand for taking on the Soviets, who were at that time still our allies.
And oh BTW, as far as we knew, we were going to need them to help with the final push against Japan...knowledge of the Atomic bomb was held by only a handful of people by VE Day, and even among those who knew of it, there was no perception that it would be a war-ending weapon.
Threads like this are always long on rhetoric, and short on knowledge of the actual facts, but what can you expect when so few people in this country know anything about history.
Interesting. Can you supply any links or other evidence to back up what you claim here?
Wasn't there disagreement as to having Stalin or at least a high-level Soviet dignitary present at the first atomic tests as means of communicating "this is also meant for you"?
FDR was possibly the worst President the United States ever had...he was responsible, along with Herbert Hoover to a lesser extent, for the idea of the government as "dispenser of goodies" rather than an a utility to administer justice and shoot Nazis.
He was not alone in creating this impression - but for the USA, his role was pivotal.
Regards, Ivan
That's a case a general is not permitted to take. Only leaders win wars when popular sentiment flags. Churchill was such a leader, but for the sake of England.
One good thing Roosevelt did was select HST as his Vice President in 1944 rather than Henry Wallace. If he had, the course of history would have been changed dramatically. Wallace would have given the Soviets everything they wanted and there would have been no Truman Doctrine.
True. Doesn't mean he was right. While a great general, he was also pretty much a flake.
The Russians had about 20 million men under arms.
The US was still heavily involved against Japan, and expected that they would be for perhaps another two years. Unnecessarily starting another war under these conditions would have been highly irresponsible.
Churchill motivated the British to fight on when resistance seemed hopeless. I hope you can see the difference between a leader doing that and motivating his people to attack an ally.
As baseballmom said, hindsight is 20/20. But admitting it was a disaster is something other than hindsight or historical facts. It is honesty. Take your pick: Putin, who recently described the collapse of the Soviet Union as "the greatest geopolitical catastrophe" of the 20th century, or Bush who replied that "the Soviet domination of central and eastern Europe after World War II will be remembered as "one of the greatest wrongs of history."
Perhaps it was FDRs wife. No matter. We should retain our ability to recognize that resistence is always required as long as evil doesn't sleep.
By 1946, U.S. Troops were openly protesting in the streets of Europe to go home. The military back then, while braver than any of us may ever know, was far less professional than the military we know of today.
Of course, properly motivating troops is the responsibility of leadership.
My main problem with the idea of rolling on to Moscow would be that it would have let the Nazis off the hook. Part of that strategy would have been to keep the Germany Army together, and use them as frontline cannon fodder against the Reds. In fact, there is some indication that many Nazi generals, while realizing the war was lost for Germany, felt they might still be saved if a deal was made with the West to turn against the Russkies. I believe such a deal was being floated as early as 1943.
General Patton thought otherwise, and probably would have kicked their butts.
The comments of Putin and Bush concern a larger scope.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.