quickly towards conditions of freer trade and
unimpeded currency exchanges in order to avoid
a repetition of the 1930s, the Americans attach-
ed conditions to their loans which the West
European economies were unable to meet when
called upon to do so in 1947. Far more help
would then be needed.
The void left by Roosevelt’s death was felt even
more deeply when it came to chart the course the
US should pursue in world affairs than it was in
domestic affairs. Roosevelt had followed what at
first glance appeared to be contradictory aims.
The strong support the US gave to the setting up
of the United Nations and the freeing of inter-
national trade involved a global commitment to a
peaceful world. The inevitable conflicts would be
handled and resolved peacefully in the world
forum of the UN. Simultaneously Roosevelt
strove to maintain the wartime alliance of the Big
Four, the Soviet Union, the US, Britain and
China. Each of the Big Four would be responsi-
ble for peace and security in its own part of the
world. Roosevelt set great store by personal diplo-
macy, developing friendly relations with Stalin
and Churchill. He was ready to deal with Stalin
directly, to the discomfort of his British ally; but
when there was a need to check Stalin he would
acknowledge and emphasise the ‘special relation-
ship’ that existed between Britain and the US. He
was opposed to colonialism and he looked
forward to a gradual transformation of the
European colonial rule in Asia, the Middle East
and Africa with his country’s benevolent encour-
agement, but these were ideals that could not
easily be put into practice without losing the con-
fidence and support of the West European states.
The problem of what to do about China already
loomed large in 1945, with the Nationalists under
Chiang Kai-shek facing the well-entrenched
Communists led by Mao Zedong in a struggle for
the control of China. Roosevelt’s aim was to unite
the two hostile sides against the Japanese invaders
by persuading the Communists to subordinate
themselves to the Nationalists – a hopelessly
impractical endeavour.
Roosevelt had deliberately avoided any coher-
ent detailed master plan to guide American policy
in the post-war world. He was a pragmatist.
Events would decide the degree of emphasis to
be placed on one tactic or another so that they
might complement each other in a workable way.
The handling of the various policy threads would
thus require a virtuoso in the White House,
constantly adjusting a policy here while trying
out new initiatives somewhere else. Whether
Roosevelt could have handled the problems as
successfully as he supposed must be doubted.
But the clash did not seem inevitable in 1945
or 1946. An early ‘hot’ war was not expected
either in Moscow or in Washington. No thought
was as yet given to building up rival armies or
alliances to meet such an eventuality. The US
after victory on the battlefields wished to bring its
troops home from Europe and Asia as quickly as
possible. The army, navy and air force were mas-
sively demobilised; aircraft, warships and tanks
when not actually broken up were mothballed or
left rusting in fields and creeks. Roosevelt and
Truman felt it safe to rely on America’s nuclear
monopoly. The American people wanted to
return without undue delay to normality. They
were not prepared to pay higher taxes for large
armed forces in peacetime, and Truman for
reasons of domestic policies wanted to balance
the budget. Occupation troops in Germany and
Japan were kept at the lowest level consistent with
internal security. Assistance to former allies was
limited to economic aid, to loans and goods, and,
in the case of Nationalist China, to weapons.
Truman talked tough and gave an outraged
Soviet Foreign Minister Molotov a dressing down
in April 1945. But, in what became the Soviet
‘sphere’ in Eastern and central Europe, the US
and Western Europe had neither the means nor
the will to interfere effectively; all they could do
was to refrain for a short time from recognising
the Soviet-created governments.
Truman’s experience of world affairs was
limited. On the complex questions confronting
the US in the spring and summer of 1945, he
tried to follow through Roosevelt’s policies. But
the counsels of his principal advisers were divided.
The most important issue was whether to con-
front Russia or to try to arrive at some working
arrangement with Stalin over disputed issues such