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Mon 2 Feb, 2015 03:38 pm
On this day, Feb 2nd, 1949:
United States rejects proposal for conference with Stalin
In response to Soviet leader Joseph Stalin's proposal that President Harry S. Truman travel to Russia for a conference, Secretary of State Dean Acheson brusquely rejects the idea as a "political maneuver." This rather curious exchange was further evidence of the diplomatic sparring between the United States and the Soviet Union that was so characteristic of the early years of the Cold War.
Had Truman made the trip to Russia, talked with Stalin and resolved all the sticky issues, there would have been NO cold war.
Thanks, Dean Atcheson for being so paranoic. your stupidity almost destroyed the earth.
“No lesson is so deeply inculcated by the experience of life as that you should NEVER TRUST EXPERTS.” Lord Salisbury
@Rickoshay75,
Quote:
Had Truman made the trip to Russia, talked with Stalin and resolved all the sticky issues, there would have been NO cold war.
If you believe that, Rick, you REALLY don't understand much about 20th Century history. There was no reason for Truman -- or any other sane person -- to trust anything whatever that Stalin might say or offer. Given that this megalomaniac from Georgia was in total and complete power, a trip to the USSR by the POTUS would have been a waste of time at best. At worst it might have been dangerous.
The so-called Cold War was as inevitable as anything in recent history.
@Lustig Andrei,
Lustig Andrei wrote:
Quote:
Had Truman made the trip to Russia, talked with Stalin and resolved all the sticky issues, there would have been NO cold war.
If you believe that, Rick, you REALLY don't understand much about 20th Century history. There was no reason for Truman -- or any other sane person -- to trust anything whatever that Stalin might say or offer. Given that this megalomaniac from Georgia was in total and complete power, a trip to the USSR by the POTUS would have been a waste of time at best. At worst it might have been dangerous.
The so-called Cold War was as inevitable as anything in recent history.
With all that propaganda going around at the time by the media, who knew what to believe? The same kind of propaganda was going on in Russia at the same time, and only Stalin had the courage to stick his neck out, while Truman stayed safe at home -- His cowardice was exploited by the Russia press and they weren't afraid of us anymore.
@Rickoshay75,
Quote:With all that propaganda going around at the time by the media, who knew what to believe? The same kind of propaganda was going on in Russia at the same time, and only Stalin had the courage to stick his neck out, while Truman stayed safe at home -- His cowardice was exploited by the Russia press and they weren't afraid of us anymore.
Stalin's dictatorial control over the Soviet Union was absolute. The propaganda "going on in Russia at the same time" was strictly at Stalin's command. Nothing was published in Russia that was not Stalin-approved. The proposed meeting with Truman was a publicity stunt, pure and simple.
And in 1945 the Russians certainly were afraid of us. They didn't yet have the knowledge of how to build an atomic bomb. We did.
@Rickoshay75,
Rickoshay75 wrote:
Had Truman made the trip to Russia, talked with Stalin and resolved all the sticky issues, there would have been NO cold war.
Sure. Just like Chamberlain traveling to Munich Germany and meeting with Hitler resolved all the sticky issues of Germany and it's eastern neighbors.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Munich_Agreement
(That was sarcasm in case you failed to understand it.)
@Rickoshay75,
Are you really either so naïve or so stupid as to think that there was any such thing as a free press or respect for public opinion in the Soviet Union?
Wanna buy a bridge, Bubba?
Unfortunately the US has been always an "expansionist country", and in those years the Soviet Union was dedicated as well to expand its political system.
Both great nations wanted to defend each from the another, and their agreements -if any- have been mostly broken by both parties.
@carloslebaron,
carloslebaron wrote:
Unfortunately the US has been always an "expansionist country", and in those years the Soviet Union was dedicated as well to expand its political system.
Both great nations wanted to defend each from the another, and their agreements -if any- have been mostly broken by both parties.
True but Stalin made the first peace overture when he invited Truman to come to Russia. When Trueman refused, that was the end of further negotiatons.
Anyway Cold War would happen, despite meet them or not
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