Written on June 24, 2019, this passage, based on a dialogue in Voice between Terumasa Nakanishi and Sōki Watanabe, sharply examines the secret agreements of Yalta, Roosevelt’s perception of the Soviet Union, and the distortions of the postwar world order.
It reveals the geopolitical consequences of “sleeping together” with Stalin, the moral responsibility of Britain and America, and how dangerous and foolish Roosevelt’s concessions toward the Soviet Union were from the standpoint of national security.

2019-06-24
According to a certain CIA paper, conversations inside the embassy at that time were completely bugged, and it argues how dangerous and foolish Roosevelt’s judgment was from the standpoint of national security.

This is a chapter I published on 2018-07-17 under the title, From the standpoint of British conservatives, who had already known since before the war what results “sleeping together” with Stalin would bring, they must have thought, “You only realized it now?”
What follows is from a dialogue feature published in this month’s issue of Voice, one of the monthly magazines that the Japanese people ought to read, under the title, “Correct the Injustice of Yalta Now, the True Cause of Today’s Confusion in Asia,” between Terumasa Nakanishi (Professor Emeritus, Kyoto University) and Sōki Watanabe (researcher of modern Japan-U.S. history).
It is a feature that all Japanese people, including students studying history, and people all over the world, should read.
The foolish “sleeping together” with Stalin.
Watanabe.
In February 1945, at Yalta on the Soviet-held Crimean Peninsula, a meeting was held among the three great leaders, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, and J. Stalin (the Yalta Conference).
As secret agreements, arrangements were made concerning “the Soviet Union putting German prisoners of war to forced labor” and “the cession to the Soviet Union of the Kuril Islands, southern Sakhalin, and various rights and interests in Manchuria.”
It was in February of the following year, 1946, that the contents of the secret agreement were made known to the American public, and the New York World-Telegram criticized the government as follows.
“The United States has done something like baiting Russia with a bribe in order to make it join the fight against the Japs.
It was completely unnecessary.
Has there ever been such a meaningless bribe as this?”
Nakanishi.
In fact, Prime Minister Churchill also well understood the injustice of the Yalta secret agreement.
About half a year after the end of the war, in February 1946, in a telegram sent by the British Foreign Office to all overseas missions just before the public announcement of the secret agreement, deep doubts were expressed as to the validity of the Yalta Agreement, particularly because President Roosevelt’s signature promising the transfer to the Soviet Union of Japanese territory including the Kuril Islands and the Northern Territories exceeded the authority of the American president, and because there had been no ratification of the agreement by the U.S. Congress.
In other words, from the very beginning the British government had doubts about the legal validity of the Yalta secret agreement.
Yet Churchill, knowing this, signed it without even informing his own cabinet, for the sake of smoothing relations with Roosevelt, so it can be said that both the United States and Britain had very great problems from a moral point of view.
From the beginning of the twentieth century, British elites such as Churchill began to feel deep concern over the decline of the British Empire.
One of the currents born from this was “Anglo-Saxonism,” which sought to preserve British hegemony by drawing America in.
However, this was also the process by which the British Empire was absorbed into Pax Americana, rule by America.
In other words, the one who went to fetch the mummy became a mummy himself, and the world-historical meaning of the two great wars of the twentieth century can be said to be that the British Empire, which tried to skillfully draw America in, was instead crushed by America.
And I believe the Yalta Conference was precisely the final historical moment of “Britain’s sunset.”
Watanabe.
About a year after the Yalta Conference, in March 1946, Churchill said in his “Iron Curtain” speech that “the Western democracies, especially Britain and America, must restrain the Soviet movement, which continues endlessly to spread its power and ideas,” but from the standpoint of British conservatives, who had already known since before the war what results “sleeping together” with Stalin would bring, they must surely have thought, “You only realized it now, you fool” (laughs).
Nakanishi.
Roosevelt affectionately called (Iosif = Joseph) Stalin “Uncle Joe.”
However, this was no more than a performance intended to appeal to the American people about friendship with the Soviet Union, and America’s ruling strata never truly let down their guard against the Soviets.
Then how are we to explain Roosevelt’s extraordinary concessions to Stalin at the Yalta Conference?
From time to time, in Japan’s conservative discourse, one sees the line that “Roosevelt had been brainwashed by communists,” but the matter is probably not that simple.
He did not possess the cultivation of Churchill or Stalin, but in terms of his skill in pushing the United States into the Second World War with a view to achieving American global hegemony, I think Roosevelt’s abilities were indeed first-rate when seen as those of a strategist.
Watanabe.
To begin with, there is no trace whatsoever that Roosevelt ever read books related to communism.
He probably never even looked through the basic writings of Marx or Lenin.
The difficulty of interpreting Roosevelt lies in the fact that, despite his lack of cultivation, one cannot help but think that “in terms of results he was a first-rate strategist.”
Nakanishi.
The one who eagerly read books related to communism was rather his wife Eleanor Roosevelt, who was nicknamed the “Red First Lady.”
Watanabe.
I think Roosevelt had a confidence, or rather an overconfidence, that he could manipulate Stalin at will.
At the Tehran Conference of November to December 1943, where the same three leaders of the United States, Britain, and the Soviet Union gathered as at Yalta, Roosevelt stayed at the Soviet embassy.
According to a certain CIA paper, conversations inside the embassy at that time were completely bugged, and it argues how dangerous and foolish Roosevelt’s judgment was from the standpoint of national security.
Roosevelt exposed information from within his administration to the Soviet Union almost like an “exhibitionist.”
But precisely because of that, I cannot completely dismiss the view that “Roosevelt was being manipulated by Stalin’s communist spies.”
On the contrary, Roosevelt may have thought that by deliberately leaking secret information, he was the one manipulating the Soviet Union.
Might it not be that he was so unguarded toward Stalin because he believed himself to be in a strategically advantageous position?
Nakanishi.
In the end, Roosevelt’s aim was to destroy the British Empire so that America could seize world hegemony, and Japan and the Soviet Union were no more than pieces for that purpose.
And this aim was half successful, and after the war America became the hegemonic power of the world.
The Cold War can be said to have been the cost of that.
Japan was successfully drawn in, but perhaps the Soviet Union proved far more troublesome than expected.
In that sense as well, it is still mistaken to say that Roosevelt was being manipulated by the Soviet Union.
This section will continue.