Bush Buries The Shame Of Yalta

Thank you, President George W. Bush, for correcting history and making a long overdue apology for one of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's tragic mistakes. Speaking in Latvia on May 7, Bush repudiated "the agreement at Yalta" by which powerful governments negotiated away the freedom of small nations. Bush accurately blamed Yalta for "the captivity of millions in Central and Eastern Europe" and said it "will be remembered as one of the greatest wrongs of history." This admission has been 50 years coming, and Bush's words assure that "the legacy of Yalta was finally buried, once and for all."

It was at Yalta, a filthy Russian port on the Black Sea, where our dying President in February 1945 made a secret agreement with Winston Churchill and Joseph Stalin to surrender millions of people to Communist oppression behind what Churchill a year later labeled the Iron Curtain. No treaty was submitted to the U.S. Senate; indeed, the record of what went on at Yalta was not released until ten years later.

The Soviets demanded, and F.D.R. acquiesced, that the conference be held on Soviet soil (where they could plant listening devices). Churchill said, "If we had spent ten years on research we could not have found a worse place in the world than Yalta. ... It is good for typhus and deadly lice which thrive in those parts."

F.D.R. came home from Yalta and made a false report to Congress. Calling it "a personal report to you and to the people of the country" he asserted, "This conference concerned itself only with the European war and with the political problems of Europe, and not with the Pacific war."

Here is a list of the European AND Asian concessions he made to Stalin, which were confirmed by the Yalta documents released on March 16, 1955.

Poland was turned over to the Soviet Union. The United States and Britain agreed to recognize Communist stooges as the new Polish government and to withdraw recognition from the legitimate anti-Communist government of Mikolajczyk.

Germany was to be dismembered, its "national wealth" removed within two years, and several million Germans were to be sent to the Soviet Union to work as slave laborers. The record quotes Roosevelt as saying, "I hope Marshal Stalin would again propose a toast to the execution of 50,000 officers of the German army."

All Russian citizens who had fled to Germany from Communism were to be forcibly returned to the Soviet Union (i.e., the gulag).

The Soviet Union was allowed to keep control of Outer Mongolia, which the Soviets had seized from China. The southern part of Sakhalin and all the adjacent islands were given outright to the Soviets.

The Kurile Islands were given outright to the Soviets, and Port Arthur was given to the Soviets for use as a naval base. The Soviets were given effective control of the commercial port of Dairen, the Chinese-Eastern Railroad and the South-Manchurian Railroad, using the subterfuge of assuring that the Soviet Union's "preeminent" interests would be "safeguarded."

The Soviet Union was given three votes in the United Nations, while all other nations got only one.

Roosevelt's defenders have tried to claim that his concessions were necessary to bribe Stalin to enter the war against Japan. The Yalta papers prove that was false: three and a half months before the Yalta meeting, Ambassador Averell Harriman had relayed to Roosevelt a "full agreement from Stalin not only to participate in the Pacific war, but to enter the war with full effort."

Russia wasn't needed in the Pacific war, and letting Russia in simply opened the way for a Communist empire in China and North Korea. This set the stage for the Korean War in the 1950s and for the son of the original North Korean Communist dictator to threaten us with nuclear weapons today.

News photos of the Yalta meeting reveal the hovering presence of the Communist spy Alger Hiss. As the chief adviser to Secretary of State Edward Stettinius, Hiss attended nearly all the Yalta meetings and could be reached on telephone number 3, right after F.D.R. with number 1 and Stettinius with number 2.

Hiss was given all top-secret files and documents about the U.S. position 19 days before the conference. Senator William Knowland (R-CA) said this made F.D.R. "like a man playing poker with a mirror at his back."

While Republicans and honest writers such as David Lawrence and John T. Flynn denounced the Yalta betrayal, the pro-Roosevelt media praised it. Time called Yalta "a great achievement," Life called it "a success," and the New York Times called it "a milestone on the road to victory and peace."

But truth finally overtakes lies and coverups. President Bush set the record straight when he repudiated Yalta as part of the "unjust tradition" of Munich and the Hitler-Stalin pact that carved up Europe and left millions in oppression.

I got in trouble with a college history professor 35 years ago for daring to raise many of the same points about the Roosevelt betrayal at Yalta. I had a solid A riding into the final exam, did very well on the final and ended up with a final grade of C. I have long felt that, along with Carter and Clinton, FDR was #1 of the top three worst presidents of the 20th century. Woodrow Wilson is always in that competition too.

This, to me, is chilling:

A Democrat can so casually condemn millions to the gulags, and celebrate mass executions.

Seems not much has changed in sixty years of Socialism in America, has it? They worship Uncle Joe, then and now.

Here goes Bush again. Unapologetically speaking the truth and blasting liberal dogma.

The libs loved Yalta, because it got them half way to where they wanted to be.

I was in the Czech Republic a week ago and it was the 60th anniversary of "liberation". In Pilzen they were celebrating with American veterans. My Czech friends bitterly lamented that it was the Russians and not the Americans that "liberated" Czechoslovakia.

However, the Soviets were driving for territory despite Yalta. They took more casualties in their final push on Berlin, than we took during the entire war. It is questionable whether we could have taken much more territory regardless. Stalin most certainly wouldn't have backed off without a fight. It is also very questionable how we would have faired against the Soviets at that time. The T-34/85 would have ripped our tanks apart. As good a tank as the Germans, but in much greater numbers. Our air power was awesome, but the Soviets had a lot of aircraft and of increasingly good quality. We might have had to use the A-bomb on them first, and I don't think Stalin would have backed down then.

I know of many elderly Republicans who still get a warm fuzzy over FDR. Elderly Rats, of course, still go gaga over him. I personally believe he will go from revered to reviled once his giant Ponzi scheme collapses and Social Security becomes nothing more that a redistribution of the wealth mechanism as it slowly implodes.

"one of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's tragic mistakes"

Mistakes??????How anyone could consider the fraud at Yalta a "mistake" is beyond me. The French in 1938/39 had warned our government that the Hiss brothers were communist spies. Even Hoover knew they were spies. FDR gave away nothing he did not want to give away.

..Churchill said, "If we had spent ten years on research we could not have found a worse place in the world than Yalta. ... It is good for typhus and deadly lice which thrive in those parts."....Sir Winston lends a dose of reality to the proceedings....

While Roosevelt, Hiss, et al were hatching Yalta, F A Hayek was writing his classic explanation of the fact that although Soviet Communism and German National Socialism were in a bitter war, anyone who believed in liberty would not see appreciable difference between the two.
The Road to Serfdom, was published in Britain and (over some determined resistance) in America in 1944. Hayek was sailing to America for what he thought would be a modest book tour in 1945 when a sensation occurred. In April 1945 The Road to Serfdom was not only condensed in the Readers' Digest, it was the first article in an issue of the Digest - the first and still the only condensed book to be placed there rather than in the back. After the April 1945 edition of the Digest hit the newsstands, Hayek arrived to learn that The Road to Serfdom was a sensation in America and he would be speaking to huge audiences.
The original uncondensed book has gone through multiple printings since then, at least as recently as a 50th anniversary printing in 1994. It has been printed in many languages, and was read sereptitiously behind the Iron Curtain.
The Road to Serfdom (Link to the Readers' Digest Condensed Version in PDF) The Institute of Economic Affairs ^ | April, 1945 | F.A. Hayek

We might have had to use the A-bomb on them first, and I don't think Stalin would have backed down then.

Some suggest that Truman's use of the bomb was meant as a deterrent to Stalin making further inroads in Asia.

Be that as it may, Yalta was a disgrace and it's only right that Bush acknowledges it.

'I got in trouble with a college history professor 35 years ago for daring to raise many of the same points about the Roosevelt betrayal at Yalta.'

...Just as any young conservative on campus still does today for defending anything remotely Republican (Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush, etc.). Times certainly haven't changed.

-Regards, T.

Some suggest that Truman's use of the bomb was meant as a deterrent to Stalin making further inroads in Asia.

These "some" would have to explain why Truman didn't follow through on that kind of bravado when the Korean crisis broke out. He even moved the 7th Fleet into the Taiwan Strait to prevent Taiwan from attacking China, and kept it in place even after the ChiComs started attacking our forces in Korea.

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