Greetings. Its a pleasure to see you all here. Its always great to see probably all are familiar faces. We saw most of you in november and hope to see most of you again in november and in between in september for our memory conference. Stephen had said unfortunately dr. Stoler tried his best. Slipped on the way and caught his balance. All three flights from burlington, vermont were cancelled to get him here yesterday. While we are disappointed, he is even more disappointed that he couldnt make it back down here and present. But i can tell you that we are very fortunate in this great city to have one of the leading scholars in this field here to fill the breach. And enlighten us with the first panel of the day. He has been a friend since before we had a building. Not just a hotel, but an actual museum. He goes back with nick mueller and Stephen Ambrose all the way to the early days as a master Student Affairs and then went to harvard to obtain his phd and then came back home to join the faculty at unlv. Melanie boulet has just retired from being a lifelong schoolteacher and she is also very involved with our Educational Committee so its great to have you. As i mentioned going way back, we have heard lots of suggestions from dr. Bischoff over the years and we have listened to them and we have enacted them slowly. A couple of things that today really points out to me is the students. Gunter and his friends at uno also with younger scholars. Those who may be postdoc or fresh out of the phd program. And to look at a broader International Perspective and try to bring in not just the American Experience in our public programming. Lastly he has been a long time advocate. Thank you for everything youve done for us. Dr. Bischoff is the professor of history at the university of new orleans. He came here as an Exchange Student with a history degree and a masterss degree from uno. He has published too many books to put in one biography and edited many more and published thousands of articles. But he has most recently the Marshall Plan since 1947, saving europe, rebuilding austria. We have had him on our president ial counselors Advisory Board since before we had a board in 2006 and hes always a delight to be here. So lets welcome dr. Gunter bischof to the podium to open our yalta symposium. Thank you. Good morning. Its so good to see many of you here, a special shout out to our colleagues and students at uno. Its sort, of if you think about yalta, fitting that our colleague did not make it out of vermont because it was very hard to get to yalta at the time. In february 1945. You might know that roosevelt was already a very sickly man, and he had to travel by ship from virginia to the mediterranean ten days, and then a sevenhour flight up to the northern part of the crimean peninsula, stocky airfield, and from there he took a card to the palace in yalta. Another four hours, this was a man who had all kinds of physical challenges. So keep that in mind. By the way, there was a number of other cities initially envisioned for a summit meeting, churchill and roosevelt suggested, for example, northern scotland, socially, alexandria, or jerusalem as possible, a site for a summit meeting but did not want to leave the soviet union. We will talk more about that. When we talk about summits, this was a relatively recent phenomenon and what we have an International Deployment see. When center chill, as he coined many important concepts, he also coined summit trees. When there was a chase on who would first clear the summit of mount everest, that fired up the imagination of contemporary people. From that, he took the term summit tree. The cambridge historian has written excellent book on 20th century summits, and that was the one in munich, that was before yalta, which we will talk about today. The way professor reynolds put it, it was made possible by air travel, and necessary buy weapons of mass destruction and made into household news by the mass media. These are the three elements that are crucial in modern summitry. Let me get into the very complete outlined by doctor stroller, and walk you through it. His team is various summit conferences before the yalta summit, and it is preliminary marks, he was saying that the yalta conference is often considered to be a peace conference, but it is not. The war was still going on, and military matters had a high place on the conference agenda, he says, and appears only in retrospect as if it were a peace conference. He thinks this was due to the fact that there was no real postworld war ii peace conference, the way versailles and the paris conference ended a broader one. He wants to make that important point, not a peace conference. And he also makes the point and, that is what is outlined is about that Major Political issues that were on the delta Conference Schedule had already been discussed and many summit meetings. And i had discussed in conferences and november 1943, which was also a bit more than a year before yalta. There were many other conference by lower level diplomats, and i would add to that outline that, many of the issues that were discussed by the big three or Foreign Ministers were various planning committees. It was the Foreign Office which came out of Foreign Research which was at oxford. So i have looked at many of these document with regard to austria, and they are very complete, and i think in the british case you can see that churchill took more suggestions of his planners than in the american. Case in the United States, the council on Foreign Relations began post war planning even before the country was in the war. And when the u. S. Finally tried the war in 1941, that planning effort from the council on Foreign Relations brought into the state department. Many of the council experts were part of it, but it was in the state department, much of the planning was done in 1942 and 43, but very often the suggestions made by the expert were not necessarily picked up by roosevelt and carried out. So, in other words, there was huge Planning Efforts going on in the Angle American world, but also france, once it had a government again, and also in the soviet union that was planning going. On and it was something that a quietly goes forward when the armies fight in the fields trying to defeat the nazis on the battlefield. Lets go into the outline here. Doctor scholar has put together the most important conferences, and you can see on the highest level with roosevelt and charge begins in august 1941, the famous newfoundland conference when the Atlanta Charter was agreed on by a crucial wartime document by roosevelt and churchill. So, again, the United States was not in the war, and already they were doing diplomatic planning for the post war future of the world. There was a couple of meetings in washington d. C. You see that in 1942, and then a moscow meeting with churchill and stalin meeting in august and herman was also present, if you dont know, he was roosevelt ambassador to the soviet union and between roosevelt and stolen. Then they met in casablanca, morocco, stalin did not come to that even though he was invited because it was out of the country, as he put it. And it was the Unconditional Surrender that determines that the japanese cannot consider this time, this was a lesson of world war one, conditionally, but they had to surrender unconditionally at the end of the war. So a crucial decision. Another quebec meeting, the first meeting that was the Foreign Ministers so they were represented by how. This thing is not working, jeremy. Okay, then there was a meeting in washington where it was being founded in 1943, thats very important for the post world. They were in Central Europe and in europe after world war ii, in 1940. Six if you think about the fact that in germany and austria people only had 1000 calories a day, it would be them that guaranteed their survival. So a very important need there. After tehran, there was a meeting for post war planning also for the far east. Then the important tehran meeting, ill talk more about that in a few minutes. That was in november of 1943, and then meetings that were important for the post world, the brett meeting in new hampshire, where all of the important decisions were made for the post world war. But out of this meeting, the dollar became the strongest currency in the world and other currencies would be fitted to the dollar after the war. So this was important for the financial order of the post world war. In washington, a meeting that was a long meeting and mainly dealt with the United Nations matters. Quebec and canada was only decided to talk about that, and then moscow in the soviet union church flew there. Think about this, churchill flew 107 miles to get to these meetings. And then these miles the travel was not always comfortable. If you think about the meetings going to moscow and the fall of 1944, and i will talk about it a bit. An important decision was made about how the bookends will be divided up. The socalled percentage agreement, and at yalta, we will talk about the meetings continuing early on. And important decisions were made about force world germany, including reparations decisions. So its a very long list of meetings that we are talking about. And in all of these meetings, important decisions were made about the post world order. So, for example. , when they got to moscow and october 1943, the Foreign Ministers talked about whether the soviet union would come into the war in the far east, that is something that continued at yalta, and im sure they will talk about that. For example, the moscow meeting was something that doctor stolen did not know, that i tell you its also important for declarations of post war austria. That founded the post war austrian estate, that had been gobbled up by the nazis in 1938. But important decisions have been made about nazi germany already. It was important for a combined military strategy, and finding the second front. He insisted on it, and when you think about it, the United States had already landed in the british and in italy, making their way up the booth and 1943. The soviets had already defeated the germans before moscow, as stalin grad in 1943. So while these vital progress was being made on the battlefield, here they decided, finally, we are going to open up a second front six months after the end of the tehran conference. So, in that sense, the second front had been a sore issue between the western powers and stolen for two years. It was first promised may of 1942, and finally stolen insisted that it came about because he wanted to believe his armies in the east and upon his insistence, it finally was promised that there would be a landing in france, operation over lord, and another landing in the south of france. This would force hitler into a two front war, meaning he would have to fight in the west to. Of course there was a three or four front war going on because it was fighting in italy and the balkans and in scandinavia. He had armies all over. So, the big three met in tehran in purja, in november of 1943. And not only did the big three mean, but the combined chiefs of staff met there as well, meaning the military leaders of the british and the americans, so you kind of see that the military matters were important, that diplomatic matters for the post war order. So the poloz issue was beginning to be discussed again. Well talk about that later and yalta because the poland boundaries and future government, that was an issue that deeply divided the east and west. When this conference went over churchill and roosevelt went to cairo in egypt and this conference business continued into 1944. For example, an important decision was made in tehran that the socalled European Advisory Commission would be established in london. The European Advisory Commission would be an important, where the boundaries were being established. They later ambassador in the soviet union, so an important decision coming out of tehran. At the quebec conference, the first one the Prime Minister also discussed nuclear weapons, the atomic bomb and they would say that this scientific effort to achieve came to fruition at the end of the war would remain an Angle American monopoly, and would not be shared by the soviets. Of course, that would be a sore point after the war that information had not been shared with the soviets. So, if you think about these many diplomatic parties, they were trying to decide on important issues to replace the leak of nations, which had not been a particularly successful organization. Many of the issues were worked out. On the United Nations issue such as a future General Assembly where the four policemen, as roosevelt called them were covering the United Nations. Great britain, the soviet union and china would dominate as the four policemen of the United Nations. There will be a General Assembly where all nations would be represented, but one of the sore point with the soviet union just and you all to, but it was discussed earlier that the soviet union insisted that they wanted and in the General Assembly. And and im not will not talk more about it because im sure that they will pick up that issue. The future of germany was a very important discussion part and all of these conferences, namely the decision that germany would be occupied militarily by the big three after the war. There was an interesting incident where, in fact, there was talking about the notification of germany, and stalin said the best way to do not survive germany is to kill 50,000 officers. Churchill was aghast at this suggestion. And roosevelt choked 45,000 is enough. They have to talk about the future order of post war germany in the sense of what we will do with all of the nazis and the notification was a very important subject matter. And let me mention one more thing that was very important that they quebec conference, the american secretary of treasury henry warm and thaw insisted on a severe treatment of germany, namely that germany would be pasteurized, would be the industrialized so he could not be a threat to the future of the world again, and this socalled plan was accepted by churchill and this conference, however, when the state department heard about it they were aghast at the idea of the de industrialized germany because they knew that germany was the center of the cotton european economy, and the de industrialization would hurt everyone around them. This strange thing was then rejected later on and did not come to fruition. We still dont know exactly how it came about, but one idea that has been discussed more recently was that this is a soviet idea, and that a higher official was actually the soviet spy, so it might have come via harry dexter white, this idea. Finally, one last important meeting before the yalta meeting is when churchill came to moscow and october of 1943. Roosevelt could not come because he was in the middle of his Fourth Campaign for being reelected. In this meeting, the infamous percentage agreement was agreed upon by the two leaders. The percentage agreement said, this is something that apparently churchill broke down on a napkin and roosevelt checked off at very percentages, but its a fear of influence agreement of diplomacy. And the case of remaining in the soviet union, if you have 90 insurance and the west britain 10 , and in the case of, great 90 increase for the british. 10 influence for the soviets. Yugoslavian and curry would be split 50 50 in terms of influence in bulgaria and the west, 25 . Note that poland is not part of this agreement, czechoslovakia is not. Austria is not part of it, but in terms of the future influence taking in Eastern Europe, it was very important what was agreed upon by these two leaders in moscow. Now, did roosevelt know about it . Yes. Harrison was reporting on the percentages and he reported back to washington, and since roosevelt not outrightly reject the percentages, stolen which led to believe that, indeed, it was an agreement between the big three. So, ladies and gentlemen, i think im going to stop here. This is the outline of the preyalta conference that took place, where many of the important decisions that would figure at yalta on poland, on germany and the post war order were already, if not agreed upon, they were there during the whole war and yalta, of course, we continued. So we continue with your attention and if there is attention, i will ask them. Thank you for starting us off here. Ladies and gentlemen, ill be walking through the crowd with a microphone, i ask that you stand before you ask the question. The solid refusal to leave yalta, is that legitimate or some kind of maneuver otherwise . From what i can tell, it was a maneuver. Because roosevelt and churchill just as legitimately could have said, we cant leave our country because we have to be close to our military decisionmaking and that was stalins principal reason. One reason why he probably only came to a meeting at yalta or tehran which was under soviet control at the time we think is that it gave him an opportunity to thoroughly bug the meeting rooms and the places where roosevelt and churchill would meet. So we think that these meeting rooms were bugged and that whenever churchill and roosevelt talk privately, stalin would have the transcripts of those talks the next evening. He was very careful in knowing what the other players would come up with and that intelligence advantage seemed to have been very important to him. I can see a reason why he wouldnt talk, couldnt travel to northern scotland for a summit