Bohlen Collection
Bohlen Minutes
The President opened the conference by saying that he wished to lend to Marshal Stalin a most interesting report2 from an American Army officer who had spent six months in Yugoslavia in close contact with Tito. This officer had the highest respect for Tito and the work he was doing in our common cause.
Marshal Stalin thanked the President and promised to return the report when he had read it.
The President then said that during the Moscow Conference, the American Delegation had introduced a proposal to make available to the United States Air Forces, air bases in the USSR for the primary purpose of the shuttle-bombing between Great Britain and the Soviet Union.3 He handed Marshal Stalin a memorandum on the subject4 and expressed the personal hope that the Marshal would give this project his support. He then said that this was of great future importance and he wished to tell the Marshal how happy he would be to hear his word in the conference in regard to the defeat of Japanese forces and victory over Germany. He said however, that we must be prepared for that eventuality and do some advance planning, and he therefore was giving the Marshal two papers, one on the air operations against Japan and the other relating to naval operations.5 In handing these papers to Marshal Stalin, The President emphasized that the entire matter would be held in the strictest security and any contacts between Soviet and American officers on the subject would be strictly secret.
Marshal Stalin promised to study the documents the President had given him.
[Page 530]The President then said he had a great many other matters relating to the future of the world which he would like to talk over informally with the Marshal and obtain his view on them. He said that he hoped to discuss some of them before they both left Tehran. He said that he was willing to discuss any subject military or political which the Marshal desired.
Marshal Stalin replied there was nothing to prevent them from discussing anything they wished.
The President then said the question of a post war organization to preserve peace had not been fully explained and dealt with and he would like to discuss with the Marshal the prospect of some organization based on the United Nations.
The President then outlined the following general plan:
(1) There would be a large organization composed of some 35 members of the United Nations which would meet periodically at different places, discuss and make recommendations to a smaller body.
Marshal Stalin inquired whether this organization was to be world-wide or European, to which the President replied, world-wide.
The President continued that there would be set up an executive committee composed of the Soviet Union, the United States, United Kingdom and China, together with two additional European states, one South American, one Near East, one Far Eastern country, and one British Dominion. He mentioned that Mr. Churchill did not like this proposal for the reason that the British Empire only had two votes. This Executive Committee would deal with all non-military questions such as agriculture, food, health, and economic questions, as well as the setting up of an International Committee. This Committee would likewise meet in various places.
Marshal Stalin inquired whether this body would have the right to make decisions binding on the nations of the world.
The President replied, yes and no. It could make recommendations for settling disputes with the hope that the nations concerned would be guided thereby, but that, for example, he did not believe the Congress of the United States would accept as binding a decision of such a body. The President then turned to the third organization which he termed “The Four Policemen”, namely, the Soviet Union, United States, Great Britain, and China. This organization would have the power to deal immediately with any threat to the peace and any sudden emergency which requires this action. He went on to say that in 1935, when Italy attacked Ethiopia, the only machinery in existence was the League of Nations. He personally had begged France to close the Suez Canal, but they instead referred it to the League which disputed the question and in the end did nothing. The [Page 531] result was that the Italian Armies went through the Suez Canal and destroyed Ethiopia.6 The President pointed out that had the machinery of the Four Policemen, which he had in mind, been in existence, it would have been possible to close the Suez Canal. The President then summarized briefly the idea that he had in mind.7
Marshal Stalin said that he did not think that the small nations of Europe would like the organization composed of the Four Policemen. He said, for example, that a European state would probably resent China having the right to apply certain machinery to it. And in any event, he did not think China would be very powerful at the end of the war. He suggested as a possible alternative, the creation of a European or a Far Eastern Committee and a European or a Worldwide organization. He said that in the European Commission there would be the United States, Great Britain, the Soviet Union and possibly one other European state.
The President said that the idea just expressed by Marshal Stalin was somewhat similar to Mr. Churchill’s idea of a Regional Committee, one for Europe, one for the Far East, and one for the Americas. Mr. Churchill had also suggested that the United States be a member of the European Commission, but he doubted if the United States Congress would agree to the United States’ participation in an exclusively European Committee which might be able to force the dispatch of American troops to Europe.
The President added that it would take a terrible crisis such as at present before Congress would ever agree to that step.
Marshal Stalin pointed out that the world organization suggested by the President, and in particular the Four Policemen, might also require the sending of American troops to Europe.
The President pointed out that he had only envisaged the sending of American planes and ships to Europe, and that England and the Soviet Union would have to handle the land armies in the event of any future threat to the peace. He went on to say that if the Japanese had not attacked the United States he doubted very much if it would have been possible to send any American forces to Europe, The President added that he saw two methods of dealing with possible threats to the peace. In one case if the threat arose from a revolution or developments in a small country, it might be possible to apply the quarantine method, closing the frontiers of the countries in question and imposing embargoes. In the second case, if the [Page 532] threat was more serious, the four powers, acting as policemen, would send an ultimatum to the nation in question and if refused, [it] would result in the immediate bombardment and possible invasion of that country.
Marshal Stalin said that yesterday he had discussed the question of safeguarding against Germany with Mr. Churchill and found him optimistic on the subject in that Mr. Churchill believed that Germany would not rise again.8 He, Stalin, personally thought that unless prevented, Germany would completely recovery [recover] within 15 to 20 years, and that therefore we must have something more serious than the type of organization proposed by the President. He pointed out that the first German aggression had occurred in 1870 and then 42 [44] years later in the 1st World War, whereas only 21 years elapsed between the end of the last war and the beginning of the present. He added that he did not believe the period between the revival of German strength would be any longer in the future and therefore he did not consider the organizations outlined by the President were enough.
He went on to say that what was needed was the control of certain strong physical points either within Germany along German borders, or even farther away, to insure that Germany would not embark on another course of aggression. He mentioned specifically Dakar as one of those points. He added that the same method should be applied in the case of Japan and that the islands in the vicinity of Japan should remain under strong control to prevent Japan’s embarking on a course of aggression.
He stated that any commission or body which was set up to preserve peace should have the right to not only make decisions but to occupy such strong points against Germany and Japan.
The President said that he agreed 100% with Marshal Stalin.
Marshal Stalin then stated he still was dubious about the question of Chinese participation.
The President replied that he had insisted on the participation of China in the 4 Power Declaration at Moscow9 not because he did not realize the weakness of China at present, but he was thinking farther into the future and that after all China was a nation of 400 million people, and it was better to have them as friends rather than as a potential source of trouble.
The President, reverting to Marshal Stalin’s statements as to the ease of converting factories,8 said that a strong and effective world [Page 533] organization of the 4 Powers could move swiftly when the first signs arose of the beginning of the conversion of such factories for warlike purposes.
Marshal Stalin replied that the Germans had shown great ability to conceal such beginnings.
The President accepted Marshal Stalin’s remark. He again expressed his agreement with Marshal Stalin that strategic positions in the world should be at the disposal of some world organization to prevent a revival of German and Japanese aggression.
- See post, p. 606.↩
- See ante, p. 136.↩
- See post, p. 617.↩
- See post, pp. 618 and 619, respectively.↩
- Regarding the Ethiopian-Italian conflict, see Foreign Relations, 1935, vol. i, pp. 594 ff., including the reference on p. 742 to the question of blocking the Suez Canal.↩
- For a facsimile reproduction of a sketch made by Roosevelt at Tehran to illustrate his concept of the postwar international organization, see post, p. 622.↩
- See ante, p. 511.↩
- For the text of the Declaration of Four Nations on General Security, signed at Moscow October 30, 1943, and issued November 1, 1943, see Decade, p. 11.↩
- The listing of those present is based on the Bohlen minutes. The Log (ante, p. 467) and the list that originally accompanied the Combined Chiefs of Staff minutes (post, p. 540) also include, in the list of those present, Somervell of the American Delegation and Hollis of the British Delegation.↩