Spheres of Influence: The Great Powers Partition Europe, from Munich to Yalta

Comparing Russian- and English-language minutes of the Big Three meetings, Gardner calls for a reassessment of the criticism that Franklin Roosevelt's shallow grasp of Stalin's motives resulted in the ``giveaway'' of Eastern Europe at the end of WW II. Gardner highlights the American president's early opposition to Churchill's acquiescence to Soviet demands for the Baltic states as well as Roosevelt's reluctant concessions on Polish issues in the territorial agreements at the 1945 Yalta Conference. Gardner ( Approaching Vietnam ) argues that Roosevelt settled for the ``spheres of influence'' pattern to keep the Grand Alliance viable, and maintains--with hindsight that does not allow for other possibilities--that a divided Europe and the Cold War were preferable to another world war which was thus avoided. (May)