Eryone, the Truman Institute to do this. Its one of the first place to do research on this project. This is a wonderful thing to be able to do at the end of it. This is my fifth or sixth time coming to kansas city. I have yet to be here when the weather was tolerable. [laughter] ive been here for a blizzard, a thunder snow, tornado and now this. But every single time i have left with barbecue in my stomach, wonderful people that i met and more admiration for this great city that you have. So thank you for your hospitality here. [applause] and im a baseball fan. So to be in the world series is fine even if it isnt pittsburgh. I did not want to write a book truman and what stalin has said. Those books have been written before. I didnt find those interesting. I didnt wabblet to write a book as the two other histories of pottsdam that a cold war was going to come after it. The participants didnt know there was a cold war coming. They were there not to set up a conflict amongst themselves but to stop the 30year conflict with germany. Thats what they had come to potsdam to do. I wanted to get back to the original sources i wanted to go back without any preconceived notion and see if the conference might look different if i did that and as crosby said also to go back with the understanding that this is a conference to end not one world war but two. And that the major participants understood that full well. Ill come back to that in a little bit. What i really wanted to do was touch on, i suppose two things that i was really interested in this book. But first as ive already articulated was to look at how the participants of this conference, how did they understand what they had come to do. Ill give you the end of that story up front. They came to end what they saw as the 30 years war of the 20th century. And as ill talk a little bit more as we go forward, a lot of the folks that are in this imagine clueding harry truman had fought in the First World War. And most of them if they had any historical sensibility about them at all, and most of them did came to this conference believing that that the reason they were there is because the people of the generation before, the peacemakers of the generation before had badly failed in their job. And they were explicit about it. Were coming here so that europe doesnt have to go through this again. As i mentioned truman was here. John maynard king had been at the First World War at the paris peace conference. So had a number of the british delegates that were here. So they were all aware of it. For them it wasnt a distant history. For them it was a living history. It was their lives. The second thing that i was interested in was the way in which the contacts within which they were operating affected the way that they thought. In other words what was their historical imagination. What did they think had brought them to germany in 1945 . What historical process cease were they thinking about . What historical analogies were they thinking about . What did they think about . I wanted to get into that. And the third theme, although its slight less important than the other two, i wanted to understand what the role of individuals really meant in these grand historic times that people were living through. Potsdam offer as perfect case study in the middle of this conference, the british will hold an election, Winston Churchhill to everybodys great surprise lost that election. Potsdam through the office, he replaced him. Churchhill said that he was a sheep in sheeps clothing. [laughter] so youll hear thats far from the case. Also the american presidency had just changed from the towering figure of Franklin Roosevelt to the man from missouri, to harry truman. Theres a wonderful Little Laboratory that we can do here. Thats what i was interested in. But first i want to take you back to 1945. This is the gathering of the potsdam conference here. The first thing i want you to know is how few people are in this room. This is in sharp contrast to the paris peace conference which was held in a major European Capital for the signing peace treaty and had thousands of people either officially at the conference or hangerson. Potsdam was held in this room so that only a small number of people can be there. And thats important. The other thing i want to stress is what berlin looked like in 1945. And i have a hard time with american under graduate a little less with the army kernls but with the american audiences to get them to understand just how devastated europe was at the end of the second world war. Im going to show you some photographs in just a second. I saw this painting in the museum of russian art in minneapolis. This is by a russian artist who was in berlin in 1945 and this is called concert in a defeated berlin. The two things that i would like you to note if you can see them on the power point, one is the devastation of the buildings behind the figures in the painting and the second is the incredibly somber looks on their faces. And to me this is a very sharp contrast, stark contrast to the way most importants begin the second world war. Most of them if we put an image to it it will be the sailor kissing in times square. It will be celebration, it will be joy. And the key thing to understand is that for the russians it was anything but. And for the city of berlin in which this conference is going to take place or at least in its suburbs, it was anything but. And i think this image sets it really, really well. I cant prove it definitively or prove it 100 . But they intentionally delay their arrival into berlin by 24 hours. I think he did it i think the russians did it to force the americans and the british to see berlin with their own eyes. Its a city that the russians conquered. This is in sharp contrast to 1919 when the president refused to go out to the battlefields because he didnt want to turn his heart against the germans. Stalin wanted to make absolutely sure that the americans and the british saw berlin for themselves. And what they saw appalled them. The same question from 1919 emerged, what to do with this germany . What to do with it . Should you rebuild it . Should you keep it in its devastated state . And as some of you may know there was a plan to do just that, the socalled morgan fowl plan discussed by henry more began fowl which truman hated. He wants to know he is not eligible to come to the potsdam conference. They wanted to take away all of the Industrial Assets and get rid of the central government. Put power into the traditional german state. Essentially make germany go away. For a while this is allied policy. By 1945, truman didnt want to do it, neither did the british. John maynard king the British Economic advisor. Even if youre not going to do that, even if youre not going to devastate germany, shouldnt they be able to live better than the russian, than the pols than the french, all of who have suffered at the hands of germany during the war. What caused the two world wars . There were those who argue that the problem was not the german people. The problem was that the german state had grown too powerle. Fix the power of the german state, that is reduce it to the power of its neighbors and germany could behave as a regular country. Another argument is that the state of europes were not cooperative enough so that the power in europe would become a zero sum game. The problem was to create a European Union so that france, germany, russia, poland dont see it as a conflict in the zero sum game. And others argued that the problem was the german people that as soon as they got the chance, they would try it again. These three views exist in the minds of the people at potsdam and in the democracy. They suggest different conclusions about what to do to prevent the next war. There are some differences, however, this is berlin. This is right by the brandenburg gate. This is after the russians have began a massive process of cleaning it up. The few american who is had seen it in may and came back if for the conference in july and astonished of how much better it looked there. Could be no doubt that the germany of 1945 was defeated. There could be no doubt that the germany of 1945 would have to accept some measure of guilt for what it had done. However, the problem remained the same. What to do about germany . And truman intentionally selected as his bodyguard a county sheriff from missouri who had four german grandparent and who spoke fluent german. He reported back to truman that although the german people were unset that he had lost the war he didnt hear any remorse. And that worried truman quite a bit as you might image. Potsdam had a fitting symbolism for two reasons. It was traditional site for the kaiser signing. This conference would be held in one of the palaces built from the german royal family. And it had become the kind of classy, ritzy suburb for nazi officials in the 1930s and 1940s. So holding the conference in potsdam hold as lot of symbol izzism. Heres another look at how berlin looked in 1945, again, a wonderful city to visit today. And they had done a wonderful job of building their building in as modern a style as possible in direct contrast to what the french did in order to make an example, in order to show you that theyre moving forward from what the germans themselves called year zero. Another thing i wanted to do in this book was to think about analogies. And i was here working off of a book called analogies at peace and the author studied that. He argued the only thing you kneed to know what a person advised president johnson is what historical analogy they were drawing. And he looked at both their public state, and private statements knowing that those statements may be different if someone made the analogy to munich, then that person was likely to argue for inserting american Ground Troops into vet unanimous. If they argued that this was going to be like korea, a difficult to find problem then they were likely to be cautious. If the analogy they went through, they were likely to argue against intervention. I thought that understanding historical analogy is to understand the way that people understand the present and the future. So i wanted to take a look and potsdam he people at were thinking and i think it support what is he was arguing. The way that people viewed the past determined how they viewed the present and where they thought the future was going. There are four dominant analogies. The fourth one is the important one. There were people most of them british, some of them hard lined american who is argued that this was munich again. Only the problem now was going to be the russians. What you had to do is make a Firm Statement early on to the russians that they werent allowed to do anything unless the british and americans were in on it and stopped them from growing too powerful right now. Truman didnt agree. Trumans principle russian advisor George Cannon did not agree. There were those like james burns from South Carolina who argued that the problem was the old Financial Arrangements that they used after the paris peace conference, the setting up of the plan. The problem in the post world war was that the United States was paying the german who is were in turn supposed to pay the french creating a cycle of debts and payments that in burns mind and in herbert hoovers mind created the great depression. Thats the problem you had to avoid. Third, there were people who said, look, if we redraw the borders of europe as almost everybody agreed to, do arent you just creating new disputes that will see future conflict after the war . Potsdam remember was a peace conference not a wartime strategy conference and that makes the mood quite different. Now, i told you it was the fourth analogy that was the important one. And youre not going to be surprised which youre going to see on the next slide. Everybody came to potsdam, almost everybody noting that the problem was this peace conference didnt do its job. These four men, theres only three in this picture, the Prime Minister, the french premiere, e man with the cain, Woodrow Wilson and the italian delegate didnt do their job. They had instead created this, terrible awful map of europe. The first thing harry truman said in his official capacity at potsdam was whatever we do here we cannot repeat the mistakes of paris. Joseph stalin said whatever we do, we cant make the same mistake. And again, i want to stress here that these men did not look at the conference in paris as ancient history. They looked at it as events out of their own lives. Winston church hill was there. James burns was there. It appearance that burns was the man to convince Woodrow Wilson to attend the conference in person. John maynard king made a reputation at the conference and he was back at potsdan. The first document i saw doing research for this project was in the birmingham air kives which is where anthony eatons papers were. The very first document was in 1943 of what had gone wrong at the paris peace conference. They were doing that in 1943 in anticipation of holding a conference just like this. I was fascinated by that. And so what did they think the mistakes were . Res where the disagreements starts. They all agreed that this conference was done badly. One that they more or less agreed was the preparation was a distrassrouse idea. Setting a figure germany could not pay, insisting that germany pay it and insisting that they would pay it in cash had been a badly destabilizing process. Its the reason that he left he any in 1919 and that wrote a book that is still in print in 75 languages. There were others who argued that shifting borders was the mistake. That by creating this map of europe what you had done was create a less stable europe not a more stable europe. And for this, Woodrow Wilson came in for much of the blame. The russians tended to argue that the problem with the paris peace conference was that all of these countries on the board got to have their say. So what ended up happening was a conference of compromises. As stalin himself said at potsdam states are not virgeuous merely because they are small. So there not of them will be represent. They will be allowed to send two delegations. They argue with each other. Nobody particularly listens to them. Winston churchhill said i dont want to talk to the pols. Im sick of the pols, he says. [laughter] the same issues as i noted remain. If Woodrow Wilson, and david george could have been there, they would have recognized everything under discussion with one exception. And ill come to that one exception in just a bit. The exact same issues are under debate one, what to do with germany . Two what to do about reparations . Somebody has to pay for the reconstruction of europe. Third, how to hand the differences between the ethnic and political maps of europe . This doesnt do that. Four, what role should the United States play . And shocking as it is to american audiences, truman went there believing that the United States would not and should not have a permanent role in europe. This was a european problem to solve. And fifth, what should be the role of multilateral organizations . Should you create overarching International Structures or should you stay with the state system . Again, all but one. And ill come to that in just a bit. As i said three nations are going to run this, no france, no poland and unlike the First World War the british dominian, canada, new zealand will not be represented individually. They will be represented by the british. The soviet union decided on where this conference would happen. The soviet union said there would be no conference. Unless it was some place that stalin could get to without getting on an airplane. Truman proposed washington, hoping to get stalin to see the United States by themselves. Stalin said no. He americans came to alaska. Nice weatherer in july and august. Stalin said no to that one as well. I think it was for two reasons. One, the soviet paranoia for security meant that it had to be a place the red army controlled and all of the americans in british were stunned at the lengths they went to for security at this conference. He wanted to give the americans to see images like the one that i showed you at the beginning. The americans set the timing of the conference, truman wanted to delay the conference for as long as possible. And you can understand why. He was new to his job. He had been absolutely unprepared for this job. He was reshuffling his cabinet. And by the way he was hearing to hear about the results of an experiment going on in the american southwest. The british only set the code name Winston Churchhill picked the code name terminal. The british were bankrupt and they knew it. And the british knew that as much as truman and the new american political structure talked about maintaining the special friendship with Great Britain they knew that american sta strategic interest did not overlap. Churchhill did everything he possibly could to create sim bottoms that the United States and britain were working together. He liked to refer toe the angeloamerican approach to a problem. Refer to the angeloamerican approach to a problem. There was a photograph and churchhill would slightly move his chair closer to truman hoping to make it seem like they were closer. Truman would move his a little farther. Stalin was laughing at Winston Churchhill, a man he had very little respect for. The british knew that they had very few cards to play. They had very little to play to force the americans or russians to see the way that britain wanted. Back to this role of personalities . This is kernl atly sitting to Harry Trumans right. When churchhill was there this group was referred to as the big three. When atly left it was known as the big 2 1 2. Atly replacement looked like a real contrast. Churchhill was bombastic, knew everybody, was very active. Atly was calmer. People mistook him as stockbroker. No american photographer had a picture for him. Nobody had bothers to take a picture of him. Nobody though