War and Peace in the Nuclear Age; Interview with Frank Roberts, 1986 [1]

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Transcript

WAR AND PEACE IN THE NUCLEAR AGE - TAPES 0D0157-0D0263 FRANK ROBERTS

INTERVIEW [1]

Interviewer:

BEFORE WE START COULD YOU TELL US WHAT YOUR TITLE WAS DURING '38

THROUGH '46?

Roberts:

Well, I came back to the foreign office at the end of '37 to be, I

think, what you in the States probably call the German desk in the

foreign office. And then I stayed right through until the end of '44

moving up to be the deputy head of the department and then the head of

the department dealing with Germany, the allied governments in London,

the Poles, the Czechs, the Dutch, the Belgians, and so on. And also

with the Iberian Peninsula.

Interviewer:

THAT WAS DURING WHAT YEARS AGAIN?

Roberts:

'37 to '44. And then at the end of '44 I went to the Yalta conference

on my way to Moscow where I was minister from the beginning of '45, I

mean February of '45 until October '47.

Bringing American into WWII

Interviewer:

[DISCUSSION ABOUT RANK AND TITLE]...SO LET'S START WITH WHAT WE WERE

TALKING ABOUT IN THE OTHER ROOM. STARTING IN 1938, YOU WERE TELLING ME

HOW CHAMBERLAIN PERCEIVED THE UNITED STATES AND THE SOVIET UNION -- HOW

THEY MIGHT BE USEFUL DURING THE WAR.

Roberts:

Yes. One has to just go back into '37, I think, a tiny bit. Chamberlain

was a very hardheaded practical sort of chap. And he was a... he

thought he was rearming Britain to stand up to Germany if necessary.

But but when people said, why don't you come to terms with the

Russians? he said, Well, how can you when Stalin is killing all his

colleagues on the Central Committee and killing all his soldiers of the

rank of colonel and above? As regard to the United States, of course,

the United States had been isolationists ever since the First World War

-- had been very much preoccupied with her own economic problems and

Roosevelt's new deal. And he felt that there wasn't much more than

sympathetic words to be got from the United States. Eden, who was

foreign secretary, took a different view. And there was a very

important moment when Roosevelt sent a letter to Chamberlain and I

can't remember the end of -- I think it was the end of '37, but it may

have been the beginning of '38. I mean that period. In which he more or

less said that he was very interested in what was going on in Europe

and would like to keep in touch and be consulted and so on. Eden was

away in France on holiday. Their relations were already rather bad over

Italy. Chamberlain didn't even consult him and sent a rather dismissive

reply to Roosevelt which didn't pick this up and say, Yes, I'd be

delighted to keep in touch with you, but more or less said, Thank you

for your letter. And that was it. And Eden was so angry and so was the

foreign office at this opportunity, which was obviously intended as a

feeler by Roosevelt, having been missed that Eden resigned. A lot of

people think he resigned over Italy, but it was on that issue that he

resigned.

Interviewer:

WITHOUT BRINGING UP THE POINT THAT EDEN RESIGNED JUST TALK ABOUT

ROOSEVELT'S LETTER TO CHAMBERLAIN AND THE RESPONSE.

Roberts:

Well, I mean, I haven't got the letters in my mind obviously, but

basically it was Roosevelt putting out a feeler to Chamberlain which

Chamberlain could have seized on to. And and kept in touch with

Roosevelt as of course Churchill did later on.

Interviewer:

[REPEAT QUESTION]

Roberts:

Well I mean, as I say, I can't remember the exact terms of the letter.

But what it was a letter expressing an interest in what was then going

on Europe which was Hitler getting stronger and stronger.

Interviewer:

[REPEAT QUESTION]

Roberts:

Well for us in the foreign office one of the most important things that

happened at that time was when Roosevelt wrote to Chamberlain because

they had not been in direct correspondence as Churchill and Roosevelt

were later on. And it was obviously intended as an opening, as it were,

to have an exchange of letters and to keep in touch. And we in the

foreign office thought that Chamberlain should have seized upon this

and tried to draw Roosevelt more and more into the European scene as

Roosevelt obviously wanted to be drawn. But Chamberlain was a very sort

of practical Birmingham businessman and said, America is isolationist;

Roosevelt can't bring America into these affairs. And he sent a reply

which was frankly discouraging.

Interviewer:

SO IN THE LATE '30S HOW DID THE UK REGARD THE UNITED STATES? THE UNITED

STATES WAS NOT A WORLD POWER REALLY AT THAT TIME...

Roberts:

Well, it was potentially a world power. But when I tell you that I of

course knew Beetle Smith, your ambassador to Moscow very well, who had

been Chief of Staff to Eisenhower. And Beetle Smith told me that before

America came into the war, but when Britain was alone and when

Roosevelt was trying to help Churchill, we had a problem in Bermuda, I

think it was. A little rising. And of course we had no troops there.

And so we sent an SOS to our friends in America who were interested.

And said, Do you think you could send a few companies of troops or

something. And Beetle Smith told me it was far more difficult to get

together a company of troops and the necessary means of conveyance than

it was later on to around an army of 5 million. So, obviously, you were

not a military power at that time. You were a naval power. That yes.

Interviewer:

I'M GOING TO ASK YOU AGAIN.

Roberts:

The United States was a naval power.

Interviewer:

IN 1939 HOW WAS THE UNITED STATES REGARDED BY THE UK AS A MILITARY

POWER?

Roberts:

Well, mainly as a naval, as a naval power. Because of course we had

dealing with the United States after the First World War and later on

the whole question of navel disarmament. And of course, as the United

States naval power was very much not exclusively, but very much in the

far east where we still had big interests but were having to

concentrate more and more upon Europe. Obviously America was not

regarded as in any sense a military power. And that had to be all built

up after you came into the war.

Interviewer:

WHEN CHURCHILL CAME TO POWER IN MAY OF 1940, WHAT WAS HIS ATTITUDE

TOWARDS TRYING TO GET THE US INVOLVED IN THE CONFLICT?

Roberts:

Well, Churchill of course was naturally interested in America. He had

an American mother. And he'd always wanted to work closely with

America. He had these great feelings as a historian and a writer of the

Anglo-Saxon peoples and the two great democracies on whom the peace of

the world depended. I mean he was a romantic. As distinct from Neville

Chamberlain who was a Birmingham businessman. And Churchill of course

became...had been in the wilderness for many years before the war

trying to persuade Neville Chamberlain that Germany was dangerous at

the time when Neville Chamberlain was trying to... reach agreements

with Hitler. And when Churchill became a minister in Chamberlain's

government when the war began he was First Lord of the Admiralty. And

so he then started a special correspondence with Franklin D. Roosevelt

who he had known when Roosevelt was running the American navy. And this

correspondence was on the basis of former naval persons-- was how they

signed that is. So quite unlike Chamberlain -- I mean Churchill at once

entered into this correspondence and always felt that without American

help -- and he felt America would in the end would support us without

coming into the war as best she could and would eventually probably be

involved -- without that we would find it very difficult to win the

war. Because, don't forget, Russia only came into the war against

Hitler in the Summer of 1941 a few months before America came into the

war as a result of the Japanese attack on the American fleet at Pearl

Harbor.

Interviewer:

DID CHURCHILL TAKE SOME KIND OF ACTION BEFORE THE UNITED STATES ENTERED

THE WAR TO TRY TO CONVINCE ROOSEVELT TO COME INTO THE WAR?

Roberts:

Well, not to... not to persuade Roosevelt to come into the war because

Churchill knew America well enough to know that Roosevelt just couldn't

persuade the congress at that time to come into the war. But to

encourage Roosevelt who wanted to do it; to give us every kind of

assistance short of war and some manifestations of it the Germans might

well have regarded as very near to war. And I'm thinking in particular

of the famous destroyers deal. Because of course we were terribly

dependent upon the convoys across the Atlantic. And we were getting a

very great deal of non-military supplies and some military supplies to

from the United States. But we needed all our ships. All our naval

ships and we were alone at that time and rather worried about the

French navy. So Roosevelt agreed to do a lease -- well to hand over to

us and bring out of mothballs 50 American world... First World War

destroyers in return for bases in the Caribbean. And this was the first

sort of major achievement in this relationship between the former naval

persons.

Interviewer:

WHAT WAS CHURCHILL'S ATTITUDE TOWARD AMERICA BEING ISOLATIONIST? DID HE

THINK THAT COULD CONTINUE?

Roberts:

He understood it, because he knew America very well.

Interviewer:

[REPEAT QUESTION]

Roberts:

I think Churchill understood the isolationist tradition of the United

States, but because he knew the United States very well. But equally,

he knew perfectly well that Roosevelt wanted to change this. And

therefore his task was to encourage Roosevelt to go as far as he could

in bringing America out of isolation. But Churchill knew he couldn't do

it on his own. And indeed, it took the Japanese to do it.

Interviewer:

HOW DID CHURCHILL REACT TO THE NEWS OF PEARL HARBOR?

Roberts:

Well, I remember very well being with Churchill -- no not with

Churchill, but with Eden, but having known Churchill's point of view,

because I was with Eden going to Moscow. We were in a train on our way

up to the north where we were going to take a cruiser at Sandsail to

Russia by the Arctic Ocean and Murmansk. And it was...when was -- we

were having dinner on this train that a young naval lieutenant who we

were taking up to rejoin his ship suddenly came to me as the junior

member of the party and said he had a radio which in those days were

not so good as they are today -- And he said, you know, I had my radio

on, and if I've heard it right -- but you know, reception wasn't very

good, the Japanese seemed to have attacked the American fleet at Pearl

Harbor. And I remember sending this news up -- we were at a table at

dinner, you see -- to Eden and the others who just couldn't believe it.

But of course, once the news had come through and once we'd consulted

with Churchill -- I mean Churchill naturally wasn't very happy at the

American fleet having been...having been sunk and ( ) a lot of it. But

at the same time he... taking the long view, he said, Well, this is

going to enable us to win the war, because America is now in the war.

And without that he couldn't see how the war was going to be won.

[END OF TAPE 0D0157]

Russia Enters WWII

Interviewer:

IN 1941 AFTER HITLER INVADED RUSSIA, HOW DID CHURCHILL EXPLAIN HIS

WANTING TO BE AN ALLY OF STALIN AT THIS POINT?

Roberts:

A: Well, Churchill had no had no second thoughts on it. I mean we had

been expecting this. Because-

Interviewer:

[REPEAT QUESTION]

Roberts:

Well, when the Nazis invaded Russia of course, it was a great surprise

to Stalin but it wasn't a surprise to us, because for several weeks

before we'd had information that this was going to happen. And we had

been trying to warn Stalin that it would happen. But Stalin felt that

we were just trying to make trouble between him and the Germans with

whom he wished to remain on relatively good relations. So Churchill had

plenty of time to prepare himself for this event. It didn't come as a

surprise. And of course, just as... he later on in a sense

welcomed...you understand -- he wasn't pleased at the sinking of the

American fleet, but I mean, he welcomed the Japanese bringing America

into the war. So he welcomed the complete change in the position in

Europe with Russia being compelled to fight against the... against the

Germans instead of being almost allied to them. So Churchill being the

man he was who took big decisions I think within less than 24 hours

he'd gone on the air with a great speech welcoming the Russians as the

victims of Nazi aggression. I mean that's how he put it. And as our

ally in the war against Hitler. Of course he said privately, I think,

that if Hitler invaded hell, he wouldn't mind having the devil as an

ally. The devil of course, in this case, being Stalin. Because of

course, a lot of people were Surprised because Churchill had been very

strongly anti-Communist going back to the First World War when he'd

been the great advocate against military intervention against the

Bolsheviks in the early days of the Revolution.

Interviewer:

COULD YOU TELL ME AGAIN WHAT CHURCHILL SAID PRIVATELY?

Roberts:

Well, yes. While, while Churchill was obv... Whereas Churchill in

public was welcoming the Soviet Union as a victim of Nazi aggression

and as a gallant ally he in private of course was taking... saying to

his friends -- who were rather critical of him -- was saying why you

are now prepared to work with the... with the Communists who you always

so much disliked. He said "Well if Hitler invaded Hell he would be

perfectly prepared to...welcome the Devil as an ally;" The Devil in

this case being Stalin.

Interviewer:

PART OF WHAT WE ARE TALKING ABOUT IN OUR PROGRAM IS THE IDEA OF

STRATEGIC BOMBING AND HOW THAT CONCEPT DEVELOPED DURING THE WAR. COULD,

WHAT WAS, HOW DID THE BRITISH MILITARY VIEW THE IDEA OF DROPPING BOMBS

ON CIVILIAN POPULATIONS WHEN IT STARTED TO OCCUR EARLY IN THE WAR?

Roberts:

Well, the, of course, there were two, main factors in this question of

strategic bombing. The first was that we had been the victims of Nazi

strategic bombing. I mean it was they that started bombing our civilian

populations in London, as I very well remember. Because I was at the

receiving end for several weeks, living just down the road here and

sleeping every night in the cellar. And so the idea of taking this back

again to the German civilian populations, didn't seem to the British to

be, in any way, unfair. But the second, and I suppose in a way more

serious factor was that once we, once France had gone out of the War

and we had to withdraw our armies from the continent. We saw very

little prospect of the British on their own, and we were on our own at

that time, continuing the war on land, on the continent. Therefore our

only way of hitting the Germans was, by, partially the naval blockade

of course, but by above all the strategic bombing. And we built up the

Royal Air Force with that in mind. I think most people today would

probably say that we overrated the probable results of strategic

bombing. But still, it certainly, especially when America came in and

added daytime bombing with fighter support, to our nighttime bombing.

It certainly did make the task of the Germans in maintaining a war

economy more difficult. But the idea that we were going to get key bits

of their economy completely out of action, that never worked.

Interviewer:

WHEN IT FIRST BECAME APPARENT THAT THE JAPANESE WERE BOMBING MANCHURIA

IN THE MID 30S AND THEN WHEN THE GERMANS BEGAN BOMBING LONDON WAS THERE

ANY KIND OF, WAS THE BRITISH MILITARY KIND OF APPALLED BY THIS SORT OF

ACTION? WAS IT CONSIDERED-

Roberts:

Well, it, as far as we were concerned, I mean, you know, Manchuria was

a long way away and the British public probably didn't think much about

that. But the Spanish Civil War, of course, had been a very major thing

for British public opinion. And of course the Germans, and the

Italians, had bombed the republican centers in Spain. I mean Guernica

is the famous case, Picasso did his famous picture of that. So, this

had really, made people very well aware of what was going to happen. In

fact when the, when the, we of course came into the war by giving the

Germans an ultimatum. It was our own choice. But we were expecting when

the ultimatum expired that there'd be a German air raid on London there

and then. And in fact there was an air raid warning within an hour or

so. But it proved to be a British plane I think that set it off. And

the Germans didn't in fact, begin to... begin to bomb us until after

the fall of France.

Interviewer:

WWII REALLY MARKED THE END OF THE DAYS WHEN THE CASUALTIES WERE JUST

AMONG SOLDIERS...

Roberts:

Soldiers. That's right. And of course it's -- Even at that time we felt

it that if the Germans had concentrated their bombing in the autumn of

1940 on our airfield because they were preparing for an invasion at

that time. Instead of moving a great deal of effort to bombing civilian

populations, they might well have won. We think it was a great mistake

on their part. And therefore the civilian populations, although we were

rather sad, you know, that a lot of people in the east end of London or

Coventry or wherever were being killed, it was a great deal better than

having the attacks on our airfield.

Interviewer:

WHAT ABOUT YOUR OWN EXPERIENCE, DID YOU HAVE, CAN YOU RECALL

PARTICULARLY HARROWING EXPERIENCE OF YOUR OWN DURING THE BOMBING OF

LONDON?

Roberts:

Well, as I've said, I we used to sleep down in the cellar in a block of

flats just down the road here, for seven weeks but I recall,

particularly vividly the first, the first raid. We, we were having

dinner with a former ambassador of mine somewhere down near Harrods.

And that was the night when the German bombers, for the first time,

came and bombed the Port of London. And they made quite a mess. So the

next morning no sorry, our host said you can't go home because we had

to get back to Kensington. So we slept the night there, and the next

morning I went to the Foreign Office and my wife walked back, very near

here actually, and she was walking along and there was a big church

there, it's the big Scottish church in Columbus, and it had been hit,

the first time she'd seen anything like that. And there was a policeman

standing there and my wife said, rather stupidly as one does, "officer

what's happened?" and this rather tall chap, and my wife is very small,

and he looked down at her and said "Mice madam!" And that's my most

vivid memory of the bombing. But we were very lucky, we had, we never,

we never had a hit or even a windowpane broken.

Interviewer:

COULD DESCRIBE THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN FDR AND CHURCHILL DURING THE

COURSE OF THE WAR? AND HOW, AND HOW THEY EACH PERCEIVED STALIN?

Roberts:

Well I think the relationship between Franklin Roosevelt and Winston

Churchill was a very close one, I mean, they knew each other very well,

they were on very close terms, with these messages going backwards and

forwards at the same time naturally, they didn't always agree on

everything, and plainly the position of the United States was different

from the position of the United Kingdom. But I think they were very

close to each other. Where however, difficulties if you like, to put

that way arose, and I'm not talking about strategic questions of

whether you landed in the South of France or whether you didn't, I mean

these were inevitable problems in a war. But when it came to the

relationship of Stalin, for quite a long time, I would say for about

three years, '41 to '44, they were both very much on the same tack,

that you know, we've got to get along with, they called him "Uncle Joe"

you see, in all their messages, and they had this theory that if only

you treat Uncle Joe like a member of the club, you see, like one of us,

he will eventually behave like a member of the club. And this of course

was a great mistake because Uncle Joe had his own communist club, of

which he was the boss. And had no particular desire to join our western

club as a country member. But this where they were quite wrong, you

see, they thought they could do that with him. And of course, towards

the end of the period, when we are moving towards the Yalta Settlement,

Roosevelt was thinking by then, very much in terms of the future of the

world after the war depending on continuing a cord between, hopefully,

the three victorious powers but above all, the two countries which were

going to be superpowers. I mean the United States and the Soviet Union.

Now, Roosevelt's one sort of, if you like, criticism of Churchill,

which he criticized him to his face, he said "You're an old

imperialist" And as you may remember Churchill had said on, we might

all remember, as Churchill had said on one occasion, he had not become

the King's Prime Minister in order to dismantle the British Empire. And

indeed after the War he hoped to keep it going, and he much opposed

independence for India, and things like this. Chur-, Roosevelt had the

strange idea that Stalin was an anti-imperialist too. Forgetting of

course that the Russians are the great imperialists of modern times.

And so at Yalta, where he was very anxious to get Stalin's agreement on

things like the United Nations, and coming into the war against Japan.

He played up to Stalin very much, and rather, saying "You and I...can't

always agree with our friend Churchill because he is an old

imperialist." And Churchill much resented this. On one occasion at

Yalta, he was so angry, he got up to leave the room. And it wasn't

Roosevelt that brought him back, spite of their close relation, it was

Stalin who got up and said, "No, no Mr. Churchill, we value you as a

great ally, a war leader, we were joking, you mustn't take this

seriously." But this was, this was the issue, if you like, between

Roosevelt and Churchill. And again, the other, as really as part of

this, of course, Roosevelt wanted to build up Chiang Kai-shek, as an

equal member of the victorious allied team, as it were. Whereas

Churchill never felt this was possible.

Interviewer:

WHY DO YOU THINK ROOSEVELT AND CHURCHILL EVEN THOUGHT FOR A MOMENT THAT

STALIN MIGHT JOIN THEIR CLUB?

Roberts:

I just don't know. I think it was very strange. Well, you know, we were

all fighting together and the Russians were fighting very hard and they

were losing lots of people. And although Stalin was a very difficult

ally, still he was for a long time, bearing the main brunt of the

actual fighting. I mean, he was losing millions of people, when neither

the Americans nor the British were having those kinds of casualties.

And this created a mood, certainly in this country, of tremendous

friendliness and sympathy for Russia I suppose. But inevitably for the

Soviet Union. And they were -- they had the same feeling and were

reflecting it I suppose. But, of course, Churchill got out of that mood

rather quicker than Roosevelt. By the middle of 1944, I think he

decided that there wasn't any hope of getting Stalin in as an ally

after the war.

Interviewer:

WHAT HAPPENED TO CHANGE CHURCHILL'S MIND?

Roberts:

Well, I think there were many things, but above all the Polish

question. And here I think it's important to realize what difficulties

were created for the British because we had gone, we had entered the

war for Poland. I mean it was the alliance with Poland. We'd been

unable to do anything, really, to prevent Hitler overrunning Poland.

And of course, when Hitler started overrunning Poland, Stalin overran

the eastern part of Poland and took it all. And we, and then we had

worked very hard to give the Poles a new base in this country and when

Russia was attacked by Hitler, then we suddenly found ourselves with

two allies. First of all the Poles, and then secondly the Russians, who

were enemies. Who had actually been fighting each other and were still

fighting each other. And so we worked very hard. I was very closely

involved in all this throughout the war to somehow try and bring them

together. And preferably before the Red Army began to advance and enter

Poland. And we had some success. I mean we got, who was then the great

Polish leader and who was less anti-Russian than most Poles were. He

did, he made an agreement with Stalin, as a result of which, we got

well, over, between a hundred and two hundred thousand Poles out of

Russia, where they'd been taken as prisoners, who formed the Polish

army in the West which was a an important military force, which fought

in the Italian campaign and in the Normandy campaign extremely well.

And of course, the Polish air force had been very important in the

battle of Britain. And the Poles had a big navy at one time. And so we

had a great debt towards the Poles, which became more and more

difficult to as it were to carry out, as the Russians advanced and made

it perfectly clear that they were going to take back what they had

gained as allies of Hitler at the beginning of the war.

Interviewer:

CAN I ASK YOU TO JUST BACK UP A COUPLE OF SENTENCES. YOU SAID "SO WE

OWED A GREAT DEBT TO THE POLES." COULD YOU START THERE AGAIN...?

Roberts:

Yes. Well, we thought we owed a debt to the Poles. I mean, firstly

because we'd been unable to help them at the beginning. And then in

spite of the fact that they'd lost their country, they'd built up again

their army and their air force and their navy, fighting with us, very

bravely and very effectively, and Churchill was a very sentimental

person and he, and also very military minded, and he had a great

respect for a brave man fighting battles and things like this. And and,

of course, as it became progressively more difficult to reestablish

relations between our Polish allies and Russia, and as Stalin began to

behave very badly toward the Poles.

[END OF TAPE 0D0158]

Interviewer:

YOU WERE STARTING TO SAY HOW STALIN...

Roberts:

Yes. Well, well I mean, apart of course, from his i- initial invasion

of Poland, which, of course, to be fair to the Russians, they said "We

are only taking back parts of Poland which are inhabited by Ukrainians

and Lithuanians." But then, of course, the first disaster was when the

graves of ten thousand Polish officers were found at Katyn, who had

obviously been shot by the Russians, but of course, the Russians

maintained they'd been shot by the Germans. Well.... Poland, the Polish

government, even Sikorsky, could hardly let this pass, and as a result,

relations were broken off. And then we tried again and then

unfortunately Sikorsky died -- he was killed in an air crash -- and

then we came on t 19 44, by which time the Russian armies were

advancing, you see, into Poland. Arid they came up to Warsaw, and the

Polish underground army, which was a very... biggish force, decided...

in the light of later events, unfortunately -- to have a rising before

the Germans had actually left Warsaw, in order that they could liberate

Warsaw, as it were, and hand it over to the Russians when they came.

But they needed Russian help for this, and the Russians stopped their

advance, and left the Poles to be... murdered, by the Germans, in a...

battle that went on for about a fortnight. And we... had been doing our

best to help them. The only way we could help them was by sending

airplanes, with ammunition and, this kind of thing. But... in the...

with the airplanes of those days, Warsaw, from the south of Italy,

where they went from, was the extreme limit, and so the obvious thing

was for them to land at Russian airfields, you see, behind the lines,

and then they could have carried much better loads. The Russians

wouldn't let us do it, even with pressure from Churchill and from

Roosevelt. And this was, I think, above all, the thing that convinced

Churchill that it was going to be very difficult to go on working with

Stalin, because he had quite different aims. And I think the beginning

of what led on to Churchill's Fulton speech in '46, was his indignation

and disappointment over Russian behavior in Eastern Europe and

particularly in Poland. But of course, Churchill ceased to be prime

minister, you see, in '45, and the Labor government that came in,

although Bevin and Attlee were anything but pro-Communist, but they

then felt that they had to see whether they could work with Stalin,

just as Roosevelt and Churchill had tried to work with Stalin, and they

spent a year or more trying to, trying to work with Stalin, and then

had to give up the attempt.

Interviewer:

(BELL) COULD YOU GIVE A BRIEF SUMMARY OF WHAT HAPPENED IN WARSAW AND OF

CHURCHILL'S ATTITUDE TOWARD IT?

Roberts:

Well. The, the Red, the Red Army had been advancing rather rapidly into

Poland, and was coming up to Warsaw, which is on the Vistula and --

Warsaw is the western side -- so... the Russians had a problem in

crossing the Vistula but they were expected to go on. And the Polish

national army, it was... the resistance force, but it was quite well

armed, and was very much under instructions from the Polish government

in London, tried to -- there was no consultation with us -- decided

that they would the Germans were then leaving Warsaw -- and so they

said they would... not wait for the Russians; they would rise and

complete the evacuation of the Germans by pushing them out, and

liberate their capital city -- expecting the Russians to come and help

them. And- and needing Russian help. Well. The Russians decided that

they were going to stay where they were, on the other side of the

Vistula. The Russian argument is that they had already advanced so fast

that they couldn't advance any further, and there may be some truth in

that, but I think it was rather more that Stalin wanted the Poles to

come out into the open and be massacred. And once the German saw this

situation, and saw that the Russians had stopped, they would come back

into Warsaw. And then there was a great battle of about... three weeks

or so, I think, between the Germans and the... and the Poles, which

resulted in the complete destruction of Warsaw and the complete

destruction of the Polish underground army. And, of course, we had been

-- the only way we could help, was by sending supplies, by air from

Italy. The only way we could help was by sending supplies by air, from

Italy, but Warsaw was at the extreme limit of the endurance of the

airplane of those days. So, to make it an effective operation we needed

to land our planes behind Warsaw, at the Russian, in the Russian

airfields. And Churchill and Roosevelt asked for permission to do that,

and Stalin... refused it. And so it was quite clear that he was only

too happy to see the Polish resistance in Warsaw destroyed, in order

that he could then push in his own Communists instead.

Interviewer:

AND SO CHURCHILL (ROBERTS INTERRUPTS)...

Roberts:

So this really, I mean this, I think was the major event that convinced

Churchill that, although he had to go on, obviously, trying to work

with Stalin, I mean, we still had a war on and he was an ally -- but...

the old optimistic idea of the alliance going forward into peace, and

the reconstruction of the world on the basis of this wartime alliance,

alas, was not going to be realized. And he came to that conclusion, you

see, well before Roosevelt. In fact Roosevelt never came to it, I

think, because he died before...

Yalta Agreement

Interviewer:

LET'S TALK ABOUT YALTA FOR A FEW MINUTES. COULD YOU TELL ME WHAT DID

EACH OF THE BIG THREE WANT OUT OF THE YALTA CONFERENCE?

Roberts:

Well, there were really four things, at Yalta -- I mean, there were a

few other peripheral things, but four major things. The first, and this

tends to be forgotten, was to reach agreement on how Germany was to be

occupied by the victorious Allies coming in from the east and the west.

The work had all been done for that -- they had a thing called the

European Advisory Council in London -- and so that wasn't too

difficult, I mean, you know, the idea of having zones and then an

Allied control council in Berlin, and all that. But this was important,

because otherwise there'd have been... rather a mess, with the two

armies coming in, not quite sure who was going where. So that was very

important but, in a sense, taken for granted. That didn't cause great

difficulty. A few other German things were done, like setting up a

reparations council, but the major part of the detailed work was left

over to the Potsdam Conference, later on. Well-- So-- and they were all

agreeing on that. Now, Roosevelt's main priorities, apart from that,

were to persuade Stalin to... come into the war against Japan, once the

war in Europe was over.

Interviewer:

COULD YOU PICK UP THAT SECOND POINT AGAIN, PLEASE?

Roberts:

Roosevelt's, one of Roosevelt's had two main priorities. And the first

was to persuade Stalin, to bring Russia into the war against Japan,

because she had not been fighting Japan -- neutral -- once the war in

Europe was over. And you may say why, one might say, why did he attach

importance to this when America was developing the atom bomb? But, the

feeling at that time, and at Yalta, where I was ... there were only two

atom bombs, I think, and it wasn't sure that they were really going to

work, or that even these incredibly brave Japanese would necessarily...

be affected by them. And that one had to think in terms of at least

half a million American lives being lost on the beaches of Japan, after

the experience that the Americans had in landing on all the islands in

the Pacific. So it did seem rather important to get the Russians in to

attack the Japanese through Manchuria, from the back. I think in the

light of history... Stalin had every advantage in coming in, so... it

wasn't so necessary to be nice to him to bring him in -- but anyway,

that was... an obvious priority. Then the second of Roosevelt's major

priorities, and this is the third main issue at Yalta--

Interviewer:

PICK UP ON WHAT YOU SAID ABOUT, IN THE LIGHT OF HISTORY...

Roberts:

In the light of the, in the light of history, it might well be said

that since Stalin... had every advantage in coming in the war against

Japan; after all, he'd only he hardly lost any troops in it only took

about a week, and he took the whole of Manchuria, and got back for

Russia all that they'd lost in the Russo-Japanese War of 1905, at the

expense of the Chinese. But, but still at that time it was, it wasn't

so sure. The other priority of Roosevelt, and the third major question,

was related to the postwar organization of the world. And Roosevelt had

the view, which was supported by Churchill, that the future

organization of the world was to depend upon the United Nations. And

the United Nations had to be different from the League of Nations, in

that it had to have the major powers as members, and that particularly

applied, of course, to the United States and the Soviet Union. And

Roosevelt wasn't so sure that Stalin was prepared to come in on this.

And indeed, Stalin was bargaining for special terms; he wanted three

seats in the United Nations -- he wanted a seat for the Ukraine and

White Russia as well as for the Soviet Union. And, and that was a major

issue. Now, the fourth major question, at Yalta, and it's the one,

which Yalta is now associated with in everybody's minds, which is the

settlement in Eastern Europe. And this was, if you like, the major

issue for Stalin. A-and the, and the settlement in Eastern Europe was

the major issue for Stalin, and also for Churchill, because of how,

having come into the war for the Poles, and the fact that we had to try

and get, even if not an ideal solution, the best possible solution for

the Poles, this was what Churchill wanted to get out of Yalta. This is

really why I was at Yalta, because I'd been dealing with the Polish

situation. But of course Roosevelt wasn't so interested in that; and

this was rather obvious, and Stalin could see that, you see. And also

Roosevelt, at Yalta, made a statement which, again, in the light of

history, was very unfortunate: when he told Stalin that he intended to

take the American troops out of Europe within a year or two after the

end of the war; which meant that Stalin was going to be left with far

and away the biggest army in a... completely devastated continent. And

we the British were not strong enough to provide the balance. So in the

light of that, I think Stalin said, "Well, that's all right, I can do

what I want in Eastern Europe, basically. But, but I mean now everybody

says, "Well, Poland was given away to the Russians and... all the other

Eastern European countries on the way" -- but, it wasn't quite like

that, because the Red Army had already taken all these places; the Red

Army, by the time of Yalta, was right through Poland and moving into

Germany. So it was in fact the military results of the war which

decided what was going to happen in Eastern Europe, just as in the

Mediterranean, where Stalin wanted quite a lot of things, he couldn't

get them because there it was the Anglo-American armies which were in

occupation. I mean, one tends to forget this was a mort-- a war

situation, it wasn't diplomats just discussing what would be nice and

what could be done. But, in spite of all that, I mean, one did get...

on paper, I mean, quite reasonable settlements, but... the point was

that the Russians interpreted free elections and democracy and... all

that kind of thing rather differently from the way we did. But these

were the four, the four main issues -- and I think if Roosevelt had not

been... had not had his eyes so firmly on Japan and the United Nations,

and had... given Stalin the impression that he was more interested in

the future of Eastern Europe, we might have got a better settlement,

but... I only say might, because the Russians were determined to

control Eastern Europe. You see, after the first world war, it was the

West who controlled Eastern Europe against... the Soviet Union, so he

was going to reverse this and... what the Red Army had taken, he was

going to hold.

Interviewer:

BUT WHY DID CHURCHILL AND ROOSEVELT EVEN THINK THAT DEMOCRACIES COULD

BE ESTABLISHED ALONG THE BORDERS OF RUSSIA?

Roberts:

Well, I don't think we were expecting "pattern" democracies in Rumania

or Bulgaria, but Poland... had been... rather too much of a democracy

at various... of its history, you know. When they had the De Rerum Veto

(?) and... any one member of the Polish Parliament could stop the

government of the day doing whatever it wanted to, and... it was a...

if you like, a... an exaggeration of democracy; and Czechoslovakia had

been, had been, and still was a democratic system, so it wasn't so

entirely outrageous to think that this might be possible. I would

suppose that Roosevelt thought, and Churchill might have to a lesser

extent that Russia was going to come out of the war, very dependent

upon American aid, because it had been... devastated; it needed food,

it needed every kind of thing. And I think Roosevelt thought that would

be... a weapon is perhaps the wrong word, but it would, it would make

Stalin on the whole want a better relationship, and that therefore he

might... moderate his ambitions. But it became clear as time went on

that Stalin was not prepared to sell his political goals or his

territorial ambitions, for economic advantages -- in fact he turned

down offers from Roosevelt, later on -- not from Roosevelt, from Truman

-- and eventually refused... even to join in the Marshall Plan, which

was offered to Eastern Europe as well as to the West. But at that time

that didn't seem quite so clear.

[END OF TAPE 0D0159]

Interviewer:

WHAT WAS IN STALIN'S MIND AT YALTA? WHAT WAS HIS POINT OF VIEW TOWARD

EASTERN EUROPE AT THAT TIME?

Roberts:

Well, I -- one can only speculate; Stalin wasn't kind enough to explain

to us that. But I think it was perfectly clear that Stalin wanted to

establish what he called "friendly and reliable governments" throughout

Eastern Europe. Now, friendly and reli-- and that's what he wanted...

from the very beginning; I mean, when I was in Moscow in '39, before

the war, and we were negotiating with Stalin, trying to... get his help

in supporting the Poles and the Rumanians against Hitler, he, even then

he made... certain demands: he said, "I want to be free to move my

troops into..." what he regarded as parts of the Ukraine and Lithuania

that were then parts of Poland. He wanted to have control of the Baltic

States. He wanted to have control of Bessarabia, and Bukavina, on the

Rumanian borders. And and he wanted certain things in Finland. Well --

he took all these things, when our negotiations failed, and he came to

terms with Hitler. Then of course he lost them all, when Hitler

attacked Russia and pushed the Russians back. But even in December,

1941, with the German armies 16 kilometers from the center of Moscow --

when I went to Moscow with Anthony Eden -- one of the first things that

Stalin asked for, he said, "Mr. Eden, I want British... assurance that

you will support me at the end of the war in my claims" upon what we

would say was eastern Poland, the Baltic states, Bukovina, and all

these things. So he was entirely consistent. So it was quite clear that

once the Red Army had, he would say, "liberated," as we would say,

"occupied", all these areas, he was going, in one way or another, to

hold them. Now the problem, in our minds, was how was he going to do

it? In, in Poland, you see, we knew there were very few Polish

communists. And Stalin himself had killed most of the communist leaders

who'd been in Moscow in 1937. So, we felt that, if he did want to work

with the Poles, he had to work with non-communist Poles, because they

were the majority, and therefore you could have a situation which was

not entirely unacceptable. But, on the contrary, Stalin brought in

Polish leaders who hadn't been bumped off in '37, from Russia, Beirut

or Subkomarovsky, Rada.... (???), they all had double-barreled names.

And there was only one Pole who appeared at that time who was a local

communist: that was Gomulka, who was entirely different from the others

-- he was a Polish nationalist, the others were Russian stooges. And

and the first elections that they did have in Poland, which, under the

Yalta agreements, had to be held Mikolichik (?), who'd been the Polish

leader in London, and had gone back to Poland to form this joint

government -- his Peasant Party came out very well; they got lots of

votes. But after that the Russians said there weren't going to be any

more elections like that!

Interviewer:

SO, SINCE STALIN HAD BEEN SAYING IN 1939 AND THEN IN 1941 THAT HE

WANTED EASTERN POLAND AND THE BALTIC STATES, WHY WAS ANYONE SURPRISED

AFTER THE WAR THAT HE DID NOT WITHDRAW PROM THOSE TERRITORIES?

Roberts:

Well, he wasn't expected to withdraw -- I mean he was expected,

obviously, to maintain a rather close relationship with all those

countries -- the problem was... would his... control be... a very

brutal one, as it became; or would it be exercised in a rather more

subtle fashion? Unfortunately it wasn't. But when you say everybody --

I mean, we were not, I was not very surprised; I mean -- only, we had

to, we had to do the best we could.

Interviewer:

COULD YOU SAY THAT AGAIN? YOU WERE NOT VERY SURPRISED BY WHAT?

Roberts:

I mean, the accusation is now made, that the Western Allies were very

naive in... not realizing that Stalin was just going to... seize

Eastern Europe and control it. Well, frankly, many of us, certainly I

myself was not the least bit surprised -- I thought he would! But there

were various ways of doing it could be done in a sort of rather brutal

way, as it eventually was, or it could be done in a... way which was

slightly more acceptable, in that he would have close relations with

all these countries, but they would, they would still be able to have

relations with the outside world. It was when he really cut them off

from the outside world that it became impossible. I mean... we surely

understood, and in fact it had to be accepted, that the, that Russia

was going to, once she had the military strength to do it, was going to

reverse the position after the first world war, when Russia was

militarily weak, and it had to abandon any kind of influence in

neighboring territories. She was going, obviously, to reverse that, a

and she, and she, and she did.

Interviewer:

IN THE SPRING OF '45, YOU WROTE TO THE FOREIGN OFFICE SAYING THAT,

AFTER WORKING SO HARD TO ESTABLISH GOOD RELATIONS IN MOSCOW, IT WAS

VERY GALLING TO BE CONFRONTED WITH EXAMPLE AFTER EXAMPLE OF POWER

POLITICS IN THEIR CRUDEST FORM. COULD YOU EXPLAIN WHAT YOU WERE SEEING

IN MOSCOW THEN?

Roberts:

Well, I mean, the, this applied particularly to Eastern Europe, but not

only. You see, within a very few weeks of the Yalta agreements on

Poland the Russians had still not accepted any representatives of the

western Poles, back into Poland, to form this new government, which was

to be the Moscow Poles and the London Poles. They were, they were

holding back on this, and suggesting that, frankly, Russian stooges

from the United States -- I've forgotten their names, there were two

particular people -- should be the representatives of the west, and not

the people who'd been in London who were the official government. Then,

secondly, they, the Russians called upon... the Polish army ...

underground army, I mean there was still a big underground army in

Poland which was loyal to the government in London to declare

themselves and cooperate with the Red Army moving through Russia, which

on the face of it was a reasonable request, you see, and the minute

the, they, the, they were then instructed from London to do so, and the

minute they had done so, they were all arrested and brought to Moscow

for a show trial. And, I think none of them escaped from that; I mean,

they were all in prison. So these were not exactly encouraging. Then

again there'd been an agreement in Rumania, where there was a control

commission on which there was an American and a British, as well as a

Russian representative, and of course Rumania had come in, had, at the

end of the war there'd been a coup d'鴡t in Rumania, in which the

king, and one of his main political leaders, whose name I forget, had

come out on top as allies of the Russians. But they were not

communists; and so again within about two months of Yalta, they were

changing the whole situation -- in Rumania... they got rid of the king

while pushing in their communists, and not paying the slightest

attention to the American and British representatives on the Tripartite

Control Commission. So all these things, I mean, were-- what I had in

mind.

Interviewer:

I WONDER IF YOU COULD SUMMARIZE WHAT YOU WERE SEEING THAT YOU WERE

CALLING POWER POLITICS IN MOSCOW IN THE SPRING OF '45.

Roberts:

Well, the power politics were basically not carrying out the terms of

the Yalta Agreement, either in Poland or in Rumania. And in Poland, it

took a very long time. In fact it was only after, I think Hopkins had

paid another visit to Stalin that they were ready to accept any of the

London Poles to go back to Poland as they were entitled to under the

Yalta Agreement to form the new government. That in addition, they had

arrested and brought to Moscow for a show trial the leaders of the

Polish underground army, which was loyal to the, to the London

government. And in, and in Rumania, they had got rid of the king and

his followers who were not communists, who had nevertheless, brought

Rumania out of the German alliance and into cooperation with Russia in

order to substitute Communist, ah. These were obvious things that I

remember. I have no doubt that there were other things going on in Iran

and other places.

Interviewer:

AND SO WHAT WAS THE CONCLUSION THAT WAS DRAWN FROM THIS?

Roberts:

Well I mean one has to distinguish, I suppose, between what our

conclusion was in Moscow and what we were advising our governments and

what conclusion was drawn back into our capitals. I mean, I recall very

vividly that George Kennan at the American Embassy and I at the British

Embassy were constantly telling our people back home, you can't, you

mustn't build your post-war policy on the idea that Stalin is going to

be an ally and a reliable person to work with. He is not. He has quite

different objectives. But, but that doesn't mean that was automatically

accepted as true. It took a little time.

American and British Reports Back from Moscow

Interviewer:

THERE WAS ONE OTHER THING YOU MENTIONED WHEN WE WERE HERE THE OTHER DAY

THAT WAS ANOTHER PIECE OF EVIDENCE TO YOU THAT THERE WAS NOT GOING TO

BE A ( )...RAY PARKER

Roberts:

Yes, you see in Moscow, we could see what the, what the Soviet

authorities were telling their own people, which is far more important

than their sort of general propaganda. And before the war was over the,

they had what were called agitators, not quite what we would interpret

an agitator as they were really lecturers who went around the factories

and to tell the Russians what they were to think. And George Kennan and

I would tell by the then TIMES correspondent with whom we used to lunch

frequently that the, already in April, I think it was. The war ended in

May, the theme of the agitators was that the Russian people must no

longer regard the Americans and the British, who had been their wartime

allies, as real allies. I mean it was a pure chance that Russia had

fought the war with American and British allies against the Germans and

the Italians. It might equally have been the other way around....

Interviewer:

FROM THE BEGINNING...

Roberts:

You, you, in Moscow, of course, we were following what the Russians

were telling their own people, in so far as we could. And we could

follow quite a bit. And I remember very vividly that in April, before

the war was over Ray Parker, who was then the TIMES correspondent, and

he and George Kennan and I used to meet fairly regularly, telling us

that the agitators and that's not quite what we would consider as

agitators, they were really lecturers who went around the factories,

telling the Russian workers and people what they should think. And the

theme then was that they must no longer regard the Americans and the

British as their friends and allies. It was a pure chance that the war

had been fought with this lot of capitalists on their side against

another lot of capitalists and the Germans and the Italians now being

defeated the Americans and British must be regarded as just as much

enemies of the Soviet Union as the others had been. Well, that was a

pretty clear warning that the idea of if you treat Stalin as a member

of the club, he'll behave as a member of the club, had been an illusion

from the beginning.

Interviewer:

TELL ME A LITTLE ABOUT GEORGE KENNAN, IF YOU WOULD... HOW DID HIS VIEW

OF SOVIET INTENTIONS CHANGE DURING THE WAR. WAS HE THERE DURING THE

WAR?

Roberts:

Oh, George was there before I was. And left before I left, also. I came

just after Yalta, but George had been there I think for about a year, I

think before that at least. Well, George, of course, was a great expert

on Russian. He always had been. And I wasn't. I mean, I had gone to

Moscow because I dealt with Poland and Germany. So, I learned a great

deal about Russia from George, who I think was really the greatest

American expert on Russia. And of course George naturally felt that in

dealing with Russia you must take into account not only Russia as a

great power, but Marxism, Leninism as a very important ideology and the

two things went together. In the circumstances of the war particularly

the American leaders were apt to say, don't let's bother about

ideology. I mean that's the Russian's affair. And we have Stalin as an

ally with the great Russian people fighting the war. In fact there was

an occasion, I remember when George was trying to persuade to put a

point to Roosevelt saying, well you must remember that the Russians do

believe in their ideology and under their own ideology, they should act

in such and such a way. And said oh, no I'm not interested in that.

We're allies fighting a war and that's nothing to do with us. And

Roosevelt took the same line. And so George was very worried about this

and therefore wanted to bring home that the Russian leaders, apart from

Stalin's rather more unpleasant qualities in being ready to kill off

any number of people to achieve his ends or so did believe in the

Marxist, Leninist ideology, which was not our ideology. And therefore,

he was thinking in terms of a world which was going to be a Communist

world one day. I mean, you didn't take any risks in bringing it about,

but you equally didn't, didn't neglect any opportunity to push the

cause along. I remember the great phrase was you what was it, Stalin's

great phrase that you didn't pluck the unripe fruit from the trees. But

once the fruit was ripe, you took care to gather it in.

Interviewer:

WHAT WAS THE CIRCUMSTANCE, DO YOU RECALL BEHIND KENNAN'S WRITING OF THE

LONG TELEGRAM EARLY IN '46?

Roberts:

Well, we were both rather doing the same kind of thing. I was also

writing long things back to London. One of the main jobs of the

diplomat in Moscow is really to influence his government's thinking.

Almost, he has much more opportunity to do that than he had to change

the Russian thinking. And, of course, we were, I mean we weren't

saying, let us quarrel with the Russians, not at all, but we were

saying, we must realize the war is now over, the Russian interest in

working with us is not what it was It may be in certain fields. As

indeed it is today, for example, in crisis management, or something

like that. But in any other field they're not going to look at things

the same way we do. They're going to feel they must push their own

communists interests. And that will be entirely different from ours.

And again, they viewed the whole of the Third world as potentially

their oyster. I mean all these former colonies, I mean were going to be

fed up with their former colonial masters, and were, not immediately,

but gradually, going to fall into the Soviet lap. I mean, Lenin had

made this great statement that the road to Paris lay through I think it

was Shanghai, Calcutta, and Cairo. Meaning that it was through control

of the Third World that the Soviet Union would come out on top in the

end. And this became clearer and clearer and they had abolished... in

early stage of the war, in order to appease us a little bit. The

common, was it the common four. Anyway the great Communists of

international organization. But then they started another one in 1946,

which was much the same.

Interviewer:

SO DO YOU KNOW HOW KENNANS SO CALLED LONG TELEGRAM WAS RECEIVED IN

WASHINGTON?

Roberts:

Well, my impression is that it did have a very major effect. I mean...

Interviewer:

COULD I ASK YOU TO START AGAIN AND SAY "THE TELEGRAM THAT CAME..."

Roberts:

The telegram, the telegram, I mean, it wasn't one thing and I think

there were two or three at least. I mean, these really became

eventually the containment policy of ....

[END OF TAPE C01060]

Interviewer:

WE WERE STARTING TO TALK ABOUT WHAT EFFECT THAT KEN- KENNAN'S WRITINGS

HAD ON WASHINGTON?

Roberts:

Well, I think, I think certainly, Kennon's warnings if you like to put

it that way and advice on how to handle had a very major effect and let

on to the policy of containment. Which was what he'd advocated. Of

course George Kennon himself, I think, felt that his advice had been

taken too literally and at the, later on the American government had

gone too far in basing its policy upon distressed and in a way an

adversary relationship with the Soviet Union. But at that time, I mean

he felt that we must be realistic and realize what it was we were

dealing with. Which at--See during the days when almost any a--western

statesman who went to Moscow was confident that he knew how to get on

with Stalin and we were there always warning them, "Oh no, that

was--might be a who didn't know how to do it. I will know how to do

it." The first person who broke that was Andy who was a really

realistic person, but you see things like George Kennon's

uh--dispatches from Moscow to people what the reality was. But I don't

think George Kennon or for that matter myself ever advocated that we

should just regard Moscow as the force of evil and have nothing to do

with it. That way we have a certain respect for the--for the Russian

concept to dwell, they wanted to limit. And not that it was the world

we wanted to live in but from their point of view, and it's very

natural they should behave as they were doing.

Nuclear Weapons

Interviewer:

YOU WERE IN MOSCOW WEREN'T YOU AT THE TIME OF THE ATOMIC BOMBING IN

JAPAN? COULD YOU DESCRIBE WHAT THE REACTION WAS IN MOSCOW AND WHAT THE

PRESS REPORTED?

Roberts:

Well of course, I remember, I have to speak from memory and I'm -- my

memory isn't very clear on this, but I don't think they made much of

it, because the very Russian was rather to play down... The attack on

Japan with atom bombs did not in my recollection uhf create any very

enormous impression in Moscow, by that I mean to say that the Soviets

leaders did not want to play this up tremendously. You see when Truman

had told Stalin at Potsdam that they--that America had this weapon and

Robert expected Stalin to be either impressed in the sense of good for

you, or impressed in the sense of saying oh my god, the Americans have

got something I haven't got. But Stalin hadn't shown any kind of

reaction, bu-- I mean that might have been because he already was

making his own atom bomb or it might have been pure tactics that he

didn't want to appear to be too much impressed. And following on that

tack of course they were not going to make too much of the--of the

dropping of the atom bomb against the Japanese. But I don't, I mean I

haven't a clear recollection of what he's done a great spread, I'm

proud or not I don't recollect it having been put on the great spread

on PRAVDA, it wouldn't have fitted in with the general Russian approach

at that time.

Interviewer:

SO IN THE SOVIET UNION WHAT WAS THEIR EXPLANATION OF THE JAPANESE

SURRENDER?

Roberts:

Well I do--I think that there-- they made a great deal of course, being

Russians, of their own rapid advance in and how this had been very

important in the--in the five year result. I don't think they kept the

atom bomb as a secret to all. But they weren't playing it up. And they

weren't doing what of course they might have done which was to say what

a terrible thing to do, and how awful to destroy all these populations.

There--that not--they didn't at all.

Interviewer:

ONE THING YOU MENTIONED THE OTHER DAY... YOU MADE THE STATEMENT AND I'M

NOT CLEAR NOW IN MY NOTES WHO YOU WERE QUOTING BUT HE SAID, "ALL THE

RUSSIANS NEED TO GET TO THE ATLANTIC WERE " AND COULD YOU... COULD YOU

TIE IT IN WITH THE DEMOBILIZATION?

Roberts:

Yes. The Russians as we now know, were of course determined to try and

catch up with and have their own atom bomb. But in the meantime they

were dependent upon maintaining any way numerically vastly superior

conventional forces. And since the Americans were withdrawing to

America and the British were withdrawing either to England or to

various parts of the empire where we needed troops, and the French

hadn't much of an army and the Germans of course were disarmed. So

there really wasn't very much in Europe on the ground. I think at that

time, you could have said that the strongest military forces west of

the Russians were the Swedes and Swiss and Yugoslavs. And I think it

was Lord Stewart who was I mean it's now Lord Stewart, but as Michael

Stewart he was Foreign Secretary, who once said that all the Russians

needed to reach the Atlantic coast of France was boots.

Interviewer:

FROM YOUR VANTAGE POINT IN THE SOVIET UNION DID YOU FEEL THAT THE U.S.

AND U.K. WERE DEMOBILIZING TOO QUICKLY?

Roberts:

Yes. Certainly, certainly we did. Because we were--the... I mean we

were at a position in which the Americans and the British felt the war

was over both wars, I mean... What--what one was looking at from Moscow

was of course a demobilization on the part of the Americans and the

British and the Russians were cutting down their forces to some extent

but not very much. And maintaining a very large army and air force

which was not as technically efficient as it is today but still it was

certainly at that time, much the largest military force on the

continent of Europe. And ih--but of course we were still working with

them particularly in Germany and there was no question in our minds of

the Russians suddenly telling the Red Army to move forwards, I mean

that wasn't the fear. But when in 1948, were moving later on of course

from the immediate post-war period when they had the coup d'鴡t in

Prague to substitute the Communists for a normal democratic government

and then this was followed by the Berlin Blockade and when the

background to this was the Russian refusal to join in the Marshal and

Ace--AUEC as it then was. Then of course we began to get a little bit

more worried and felt that something had to be done to build up the

military strength of the west to produce a balance. And this--and this

led on to the Brussels Treaty and eventually NATO.

Interviewer:

...I WANTED TO ASK JUST A COUPLE MORE THINGS ABOUT THE ATOMIC BOMB.

RIGHT AFTER THE WAR, WHAT WAS THE GREATEST PERCEPTION OF THE IMPORTANCE

OF THE UNITED STATES HAVING AN ATOMIC MONOPOLY?

Roberts:

Well, I think we were very glad it was the United States and not the

Russians which had it. But of course the Americans at that time or soon

afterwards were proposing to give up their atomic monopoly and that was

the period if I remember correctly of the Barach Plan, which was to put

the American atomic power into a sort of United Nations Trusteeship, if

the Russians had accepted that. But of course they didn't because they

were preparing their own bomb and didn't want to be--to be stopped.

Interviewer:

DID THE U.K. THOUGH HAVE SOME FEELING THAT THE UNITED STATES HAVING AN

ATOMIC WEAPON WAS IMPORTANT TO THE SECURITY OF WESTERN EUROPE IN THOSE

DAYS?

Roberts:

Yes because since we had anything but a conventional balance it was

reassuring thought that we at least had the atom bomb if we if we

needed it. Although we weren't thinking in those days in terms of

fighting the Russians.

Interviewer:

YOU MENTIONED SOMETHING...

Roberts:

I also don't forget that one shouldn't forget that the--that the

British felt we had a share in the, in the American and atom bomb

because we'd been instrumental in the whole enterprise.

Interviewer:

...DOES THE EXISTENCE OF ATOMIC WEAPONS CHANGE THE WAY THAT NATIONS

THINK ABOUT WAR?

Roberts:

Oh, yes, it has completely. I mean wars used to be regarded whether

desirable or undesirable as a continuation of policy by other means.

And their government in Europe felt we cannot in any circumstances

conceive going to war. In fact we in Britain, only we don't regard

ourselves as particularly warlike country had in fact declared war in

1914 and also in 1939. But I think far more important of course is how

it affected the Russians. And I've done Russian-Marxist-Leninist

ideology. It had been an act of faith so-to-speak that these success of

communism in the world would not come without a final war when

declining capitalism would pull itself together to make one last effort

to save itself. Well, after the atom bomb, and above all them, the

Russians had the atom bomb, later on, Khrushchev now we much rather of

course, changed, which is not a very easy thing to do--changed the

theology, if I may put it this way and--

Interviewer:

LET'S COME BACK TO THAT... WHEN THE AMERICANS DID HAVE THE MONOPOLY

RIGHT AFTER THE WAR, WHEN THE FOREIGN MINISTERS WERE MEETING IN LONDON

AND THEN IN MOSCOW, DID THE EXISTENCE OF THE UNITED STATES BOMB MAKE

ANY DIFFERENCE IN THE DIPLOMACY THAT WAS CARRIED ON? DID THE RUSSIANS

FEEL THREATENED AT ALL?

Roberts:

I think it's impossible to say what the Russians felt or didn't feel.

Though th--normally dislike intensely that their allies or whatever way

you like to look at having something which they haven't got They

wouldn't like that and they were very busy trying to change that

situation. But to go back to the question of whether the American

monopoly of the atom bomb did affect the actual negotiations in the

post-war period, I think odds are must be no. Because we were still

operating as--uh the victorious allies. We were still for at least a

year after the end of the war right into 1946, were still discussing

how to run Germany together, how to run Austria together we were--we

were--we were engaged in the peace treaties, negotiations in Paris in

'46, peace treaties with Bulgaria and Romania and all the countries in

Eastern Europe and we were not yet, consciously moving into an

adversary relationship. Which I remember are thinking in terms of--I

mean can we threaten the Russians with the atom bomb, it would have

been regarded as quite ridiculous at that time, I mean, how angry we

might have got, these policies. I mean Russia was still the great power

which had lost millions of people fighting for us, as public opinion

thought, in the-- in the--in the great war fought for people behind the

scenes. I mean it was a rather reassuring sort that we had it and they

hadn't. But in terms of weapon in diplomacy-- it--was still based upon

trying to reach agreement, and trying to run Germany which was the

biggest question of the day in agreement. We didn't succeed but that

went on right through 1946, well over a year after the war.

Interviewer:

IN THIS PERIOD OF TIME WHEN WE CALL THE NUCLEAR THE LAST 40 YEARS OR

SO, ARE YOU SURPRISED THAT NUCLEAR WEAPONS HAVE NOT BEEN USED SINCE

WORLD WAR TWO?

Roberts:

Frankly no, I mean I think the minute any country has nuclear weapons

and understands what nuclear weapons can do it--the-- we've got the

deterrent because uh--there it is I mean leaders who started wars were

fairly competent that they weren't going to be hit by it personally,

but now, I mean everybody's going to be hit. There nobody even thinks

so, I think in--uh, I mean there are no major nuclear power would think

in terms of using nuclear weapons. I think a very interesting example

of that is the way Khrushchev had to change the whole ideology in

Marxism-Leninism to get rid of the idea of the inevitable war between

capitalism and communism and say there wasn't any longer the

inevitability of war because war would have meant nuclear war. And

again another interesting example I think is the Chinese, because

before the Chinese had the nuclear weapon and when Mao used to talk

about, this is only a paper tiger and there are, I don't know how many,

800 million or 900 million Chinese and we can well afford to lose a few

million people. But once they had the nuclear weapon themselves, they

didn't talk like that anymore.

[END OF TAPE 0D0161]

Interviewer:

THIS IS THE NUCLEAR AGE, PROGRAM 1, INTERVIEW WITH SIR FRANK ROBERTS ON

THE 21ST OF MARCH 1986. THIS TAPE'S USER BIT REFERENCE IS 0D0162, AND

THE TONE ON THE BEGINNING OF THIS TAPE WAS AT ODBM. WE TOUCHED ON

SOMETHING EARLIER AND ALICE SUGGESTED THAT WE CLARIFY IT A LITTLE BIT

IN THE TIME PERIOD THAT OUR PROGRAM IS DEALING WITH. YOU TALKED ABOUT

THE NOTION OF WHAT WAR IS. DID THE ATOMIC BOMB CHANGE THAT? DID IT

CHANGE THE WAY PEOPLE THOUGHT ABOUT WARS, IN 1945, RIGHT WHEN THE BOMB

WAS JUST BORN?

Roberts:

I find it hard to say, how soon the idea became accepted that the atom

bomb had changed the whole concept of whether you could fight wars or

whether you couldn't. Because in that period immediately after the war,

everybody was thinking in terms of that there wasn't going to be any

more war. I mean, after all, we really, the Americans and the Russians

and to a lessor extent the British were shaping the new world and was,

at that time there didn't seem to be any other fear. So I don't think

many people at that time were saying well, has the atom bomb stopped

the possibility of war because on the whole, nobody was thinking in

terms of the possibility of war. I mean, those thoughts came later,

when in '46, '47 our relations with the Soviet Union became

progressively more difficult. And eventually, in 1948, of course, were

adversarial at best, and hostile at worst. So, I mean, for my

recollection, but there may have been other people who thought

differently, I would say that it was at a later stage that we began to

say know the whole concept of ever fighting wars has changed.

Interviewer:

LET'S GO AHEAD AND TALK ABOUT THAT LATER STAGE...

[END OF TAPE 0D0162]

THIS IS CONTINUATION ON THE SAME TAPE, BUT ITS FOR PROGRAM TWO, THE

USER BIT CODE HAS CHANGED TO 0A0262. SO WE WERE STARTING TO TALK ABOUT

WHAT ABOUT IN THE LATE '40S, THE TIME OF THE BERLIN BLOCKADE AND THOSE

DAYS, HOW DID THE ATOMIC...CHANGE THE WAY PEOPLE THOUGHT ABOUT WAR...

Roberts:

Well I think, I think about the time of the Berlin Blockade, and the

coup in Prague, which, of course, really marked the watershed in

western relations with the Soviet Union we were, we felt that, leaving

the navy aside, but in European terms the Russians had infinitely

stronger conventional forces. And therefore, it was rather important

that the, that we have the nuclear weapon at that time. I'm not quite

sure when it was that people realized the Russians were going to have a

nuclear weapons, but it wasn't an issue at all in discussions of the

Russians at the Berlin Blockade. I mean, I obviously wouldn't be an

issue at all, sometime it wasn't even an issue in the background. We

went from saying, well we can be a bit tougher because we have the

nu--the nuclear weapon. But so at the time of the Berlin Blockade, we

were still thinking in terms of the possibility of conventional

military action. In fact, when I say we some people were, because at...

it was decided that something had to be done when we, when we realized

that the talk of mending bridges over the and all that was purely a

device. Then, the, then, I think it was General Clay (??), and Bob

Murphy, who was his diplomatic advisor, they were rather in favor of

sending a ground force through to Berlin. And our argument against

doing that was, well, you might conceivably get them there, but you

would never get them back again because the road would be, would be

interrupted and somebody would have to fire first and the essential

thing was that our side should not be the ones to fire first. And in

that kind of situation we'd have had to fire first to clear the road.

And therefore, we in Britain, I mean, were pressing for the air supply

line instead, because we had rights to fly and in that case, it was the

Russians who's have had to fire first. And as we felt nobody was going

to fire first, if they could help it we would be able to handle the

thing better that way. But, in the whole of this, I don't recall, and I

was handling the Berlin Blockade... the London end in Moscow and

afterwards in the United Nations, I don't recall the nuclear weapon

ever sort of coming into consideration, because nobody was dreaming of

threatening the Russians with our then nuclear weapon... and just

wasn't on. But I think it was really later on, when the Russians had a

nuclear weapon themselves, and I can't remember exactly when that was

but in the early '50s, and then each side had nuclear weapons, then I

think the whole, sort of thinking changed. And it particularly changed

on the Russian side. I mean it was more remarkable on the Russian side

because they had always had a spot of their basic ideology, the theory

that Communism could only eventually succeed in the world, after a

major military clash between what they call the bourgeois world in it's

death throws and Communism. But obviously realized, Khrushchev wasn't

in power, don't forget until 1955, so this is seven years after the

Berlin Blockade, or anyway, six. And he felt that th--this was no

longer a possible scenario because if you once moved into having to

have wars between the bourgeois and the Communist worlds you would have

to use it, nuclear weapons would be used. And this was absolutely

impossible because neither side could win. And so he had to change the

ideology and remove from the Bible, so to speak, which is a very

difficult thing to do in Russia the concept of the final war with

between the dying capitalists cause and the Communists. It was not

going to be ended by that at all. So then you moved into the other

theory of peaceful competition.

Interviewer:

CAN I JUST ASK YOU TO SAY BRIEFLY, SO WE HAVE A GOOD SENTENCE TO BEGIN

THE NOTION THAT KHRUSHCHEV HAD TO CHANGE THE BIBLE, SO TO SPEAK...

Roberts:

Do that again? Well well I think the important period in what we might

call general thinking about nuclear weapons was when Khrushchev came to

power in Russia, which was about 1955. And he was a revolutionary

thinker in many ways and particularly impressed by the new weapons, and

above all, the new nuclear weapons. And he felt that it was quite

inconceivable that there should be war between nuclear powers however

adversarial because neither was going to win. And therefore this very

basic tenet of Marxism-Leninism that the eventual victory of Communism

in the world would only come after a, after a war which, in their view,

the bourgeois capitalist society would start in a spirit of

self-preservation when they were nearing destruction. That that had to

be changed and abandoned because it was far too dangerous.

Interviewer:

RIGHT AROUND '47, '48,WHAT WAS THE EXTENT OF THE OFFICIAL BRITISH

KNOWLEDGE OF THE SIZE OF THE US ATOMIC ARSENAL?

Roberts:

I was not handling nuclear questions at any point, so I mean I'm not a,

I can't give an expert view on this but my impression is that we were

always very close to the Americans on these things, because after all,

we had worked together in the war in developing nuclear weapons. We had

been very put out after the war when the Americans felt they had to go

it alone. And it was from then on that we felt we had to go it alone,

but with American help. But I think there was a great deal of

consultation going on all the time and I would be very surprised if we

hadn't got a pretty good idea because, let's face it, we'd recently

been in the business together.

Post-WWII Relations with Russians

Interviewer:

...YOU MENTIONED THE OTHER DAY THE FOUR POWER CONFERENCE IN MOSCOW IN

EARLY '47 AS BEING A PIVOTAL POINT. COULD YOU EXPLAIN THAT PLEASE?

Roberts:

Well the American post war governments, government rather,

administration, I should say, with Secretaries of State Burns and, had

certainly worked hard at trying to get on with the Russians in Germany

and elsewhere. So had the post-war British labor government. They had

not picked opposite from Churchill, who, by that time was getting

rather skeptical about working with the Russians. But, throughout 1946,

it became increasingly difficult, we couldn't reach agreements in

Germany, I mean, it's a long story, but things got more and more

difficult. And equally, there were problems in Iran and other places,

and of course, everything was supposed to be discussed from time to

time at Four Power (??) Conferences. And there was a big Four Power

Conference to be held in Moscow in March, I think it was. It was a

seven week conference. March '47. And by that time, both on the

American side and the British, I think the feeling was that it was

getting very difficult but we still had to go on trying. But things had

reached a pretty critical stage because it was during the Moscow

conference that the Truman Doctrine was proclaimed, which again, was

America coming in to take over for the British, the support of Greece

and Turkey against the Russians. And, this was a very major breech in

American isolationism. And this came before NATO. This was the first, I

think, basic post-war American commitment. So it showed the mood of the

day. But we were still trying to treat Germany and Austria as united

countries, or countries to be united, although, we couldn't agree how.

But where I think the '47 Moscow Conference was very important was that

the French, who were the fourth occupying power in Germany had never up

till then, wanted to join with the Americans and the British in

building up what was known then as the 'bi-zone' (??), in other words

the West German administration, because they still thought that they

might be able to come to satisfactory terms on Germany with the

Russians. Traditionally, France and Russia had been allied often

against Germany. And the particular issue was they wanted to have

control of the Saar, and the Saar should not go back to Germany of coal

mines and iron works there. And also, they still hoped, with the help

of the Russians to get some control of the, of the heavy industry of

the Ruhr. But it became clear to who was the French foreign minister at

the time, during this Moscow Conference, that Stalin just wasn't

interested in this. He had a very low opinion of the French. He never

quite forgave the French for having collapsed in 1941, and so destroyed

his scenario of France and England fighting against Germany for many

years and bleeding each other white and keeping Russia on top. And and

it was there that the French realized that they were not going to be

able to get anything out of a special relationship with Russia, and

decided to come in with the Americans and the British on building up

what became the Federal Republic of Germany in the West. So that was, I

think the key thing. That and the Truman Doctrine, which had nothing to

do with the, with the actual conference in Moscow, but happened to take

place at that time.

Interviewer:

WHAT CAN YOU TELL ME ABOUT THE BRITISH REACTION TO THE ANNOUNCEMENT OF

THE TRUMAN DOCTRINE AND OF THE MARSHALL PLAN?

Roberts:

Well, the two main, two main results of the policies of a very great

British Foreign Secretary Ernie Bevin, were in fact, the Marshall Plan

and the Truman Doctrine. You may say, well, one might say they were

American things and why are we giving Mr. (?) the credit. Well, I think

he did deserve a great deal of the credit, anyway for the Marshall

Plan, because he was feeling very strongly that the first requirement

in Western Europe was to build up the economy there. And this could not

be done without American aid in a big way. And Marshall's speech at

Harvard, I think, was one in a series of speeches but decided that this

was the moment to seize upon it. And I remember I was his private

secretary, you see, and he came in to the office and said, now this is

what we've been waiting for. But he didn't want to do it purely from

Britain. He's--it had to be a European response. So, he had, I remember

his saying, 'get me that nice little man Mr. Bidault. He always called

the French Foreign Minister 'that nice little man.' Bidault didn't like

this very much. But, so that we could make this an Anglo-French sort of

reply. And so we talked to the French and then we went to General

Marshall and said, now this is marvelous and we're with you and we

support this and this was the beginning of what became the OEC and the

whole rebuilding of the Western Europe. And so naturally, I mean to say

we welcomed the Harvard would be a British understatement. The, the

Truman Doctrine, of course, was a slightly different thing, which was

unfortunately our economic position, after the war was getting more and

more difficult. Support for Turkey and Greece... the, I better go back

to the beginning. The Harvard, the Truman Doctrine was a different

story. I mean we can hardly say we were very proud of that, because

unfortunately, it was, the Truman Doctrine came about because the

British economic position after the war got weaker, especially after

Lend-Lease had been stopped, and we had traditionally... been the

people who looked after the eastern end of the Mediterranean and

therefore gave the economic and military support to Turkey and Greece,

who were standing opposite to the Communists or to the Russians. But it

became clear that we couldn't go on doing that much longer. We hadn't

got there sources. And so Bevin had to go to his American opposite

numbers and say, you know, we're going to have to their out of

supporting Greece and Turkey. Can you, replace us. Can you take over?

And, of course, it was a very remarkable American response, and I think

the first time America had really in peacetime accepted those kind of

obligations outside the Americas. It was very much what Bevin wanted

and when I, when I gave him the news which oddly enough, we got from

Pravda first, because we were in Moscow, he was naturally delighted.

But I mean not in the sense delighted that we'd had to do this, because

it was, he regretted that our economic position was such. But it was a

very important development.

[END OF TAPE 0D0262]

Interviewer:

CONTAINMENT POLICY TOWARD THE SOVIET UNION IS THE QUESTION. ALL SET?

OK. THAT IS THE QUESTION.

Roberts:

I think after the British and American governments towards the end of

'46 were coming, regretfully, to the conclusion that we couldn't go on

cooperating with the Russians, The question naturally arose of what was

the alternative policy. Well, there had been proposals from Moscow

which were you had to contain the Soviet Union. And here I think

obviously America alone had the power to contain with help from

Britain. But I think the British Foreign Secretary of that time, Bevin

who was a man of almost the greatness of Churchill in a different way,

played a major part in this. Because already in-- at the end of 1947,

when there was a four-power foreign ministers meeting in London, it was

the last of them until another one in '54. And Marshall was then the

American Secretary of State. And at a dinner in London, Bevin said,

well it's clear from the ( ) of this fortnight in London that we can't

cooperate with Stalin and Molotov. And what are we going to do? We've

got to build up the strength of Western Europe and it had to be done in

two ways, economically -- and that was, of course, the Marshall Plan

side of it. But you couldn't expect the European countries to put all

their hearts into building up the economy if they didn't have a feeling

of military security. So that would have to be done as well. And they

were quite agreed that I mean, it would require a return of American

forces to Europe. But he-- they were equally-- ( ) equally accepted

that this was quite impossible for the Truman administration to do just

like that. And that therefore he, Bevin, had to show that Europe was

doing everything it could do. And so he got first of all the treaty

with France of Dunkirk, that was in '47. Then he built that up into a

bigger treaty, the treaty Brussels with the governments of Belgium and

Holland and Luxembourg, and that made a five-power alliance. And the

military headquarters were set up in Fontainebleau under Field Marshal

Montgomery. And then, as nobody in those was thinking at all about

German rearmament, that was ( ). So then, having achieved the Brussels

treaty, Bevin then turned around to Marshall, and reminding him no

doubt of the dinner meeting in London, said, "I've done all I can do.

I've prepared the ground. And we can't go any further yet. And now we

need you." And so then started the talks on building up NATO. Which of

course had been very much strengthened by what had happened in Prague

in the beginning of '48 and the Berlin blockade later in the year. So I

think the British and particularly Bevin played a very big part in

containment, in the sense of I regard the Marshall Plan, once the

Russians had refused to be associated with it, and NATO as the two

great instruments of containment.

Interviewer:

MEDIUM SHOT. SO DID THE BRITISH STILL INFLUENCE THE UNITED STATES TO

ADOPT A POLICY OF CONTAINMENT?

Roberts:

Well, I think we-- I think the British did, yes. I mean, I think you

had great need of us at that time. Truman himself--

Interviewer:

I'M GOING TO ASK YOU TO START AGAIN AND SAY THE UNITED STATES--

Roberts:

I think, I think the Uni-- I think, I think the British certainly did

influence the United States. But of course, the British were, in a

sense, preaching to the, to the converted in the sense that you then

had a very great generation of leaders, Truman, Marshall, Acheson,

Lovett, and one could go on. Brandenburg and Connelly in the, in the

Senate. But I think without the British input or pressures or what you

like, it would have been much more difficult for Truman and his and his

and his cabinet, to persuade the Congress to take on the amazing

responsibilities of the-- of the North Atlantic Alliance.

Interviewer:

ASK YOU FOR ANY SPECIFIC RECOLLECTIONS YOU HAVE TO BRITISH REACTION TO

THE CZECHOSLOVAKIAN COUP.

Roberts:

Yes. Well, the coup in Prague came before the Berlin blockade. And was

really...the...

Interviewer:

EXCUSE ME, COULD I ASK YOU TO START AGAIN AND NOT MENTION THE BERLIN

BLOCKADE IN THE SAME PARAGRAPH. WE'LL GET--

Roberts:

I see, but I mean, everybody thinks about the Berlin blockade, but this

came before. Well, let's put it this way. The, the coup in Prague, I

think, was the first what you might call obvious sign that cooperation

with the Russians was impossible I think there'd been many instances of

it before. Because one has to remember that Czechoslovakia had been set

up, if you like to put it that way, or reconstituted after the war, in

full agreement between West and the Russians. And Benes, who went back

as the president, and Masaryk, his foreign minister wanted to cooperate

equally with both sides. And and thought they were doing so. And indeed

at times, we in the West thought they went too far in appeasing the

Russians, if you like. So that when even the Czechs, even Benes was not

regarded as a sufficiently friendly and reliable government for the

Russians, it became pretty clear that we were in for a long hard winter

as you might say. So this had quite a great effect. And after all,

don't forget that the Czech government had been in London during the

war. And, and again, we had feelings of some guilt because of Munich.

But we knew Benes very well, and above all we knew Masaryk very well,

and Masaryk was a very great friend of the British. And when they were,

so to speak, thrown out, and the communist leaders under Gotwelt(?)

were substituted, this really was a very bad business indeed. And -- if

I may go even further you see the negotiations for setting up NATO were

going on at that time. And some countries were very reluctant to come

in. Norway, for example. It was the Czech coup that persuaded the

Norwegian government that they needed support and that they'd better

come into NATO.

Interviewer:

LET'S GO TO THE MEDIUM SHOT PLEASE. JUST MENTION THAT AGAIN. WE WEREN'T

REALLY READY 'FOR THAT STATEMENT ABOUT THE CZECH COUP BRINGING NORWAY--

Roberts:

Going, going beyond Britain the effects of the Czech coup were very

great. For example, negotiations were then beginning for what

eventually became NATO in 1949. And there were various countries which

became founder members of NATO who were not very keen and rather

dubious, you know. They'd had a background of neutrality and so on. One

in particular is Norway. And the Norwegians were rather close to the

Czechs in their general sort of approach to life. And the, what had--

what Stalin had done in Prague persuaded the Norwegians that they had

better come into NATO.

Interviewer:

OK. WIDE SHOT AGAIN PLEASE. THE BERLIN BLOCKADE, NOW, YOU MENTIONED THE

OTHER DAY SOMETHING ABOUT UH, HOW STALIN WENT ON VACATION. MAYBE YOU

COULD TELL US THAT STORY ABOUT HOW NEGOTIATIONS BROKE DOWN.

Roberts:

Well, the-- we were-- I was, I was of course--I was private secretary

to Bevin, but our ambassador was ill, so I was sent to Berlin to be the

British negotiator with Bedell Smith, the American ambassador, and the

French ambassador. And we were there seven weeks. And we were obviously

the things we were talking about were the Berlin currency and whether

it was to be the Deutschmark East or the Deutschmark West and all this

kind of thing. But behind all this, it was perfectly clear that the

Russians were using this weapon as it were to try and persuade us to

abandon our plans for building up a West German administration, that

was really... Now we had, I think, seven meetings in the course of

those seven weeks, five of which were with Molotov... I think , well,

one was a preparatory one and two with Stalin. And of course, Stalin

only came in when-- he thought there was some chance of reaching

agreement. When when he thought we might be prepared perhaps to meet

him on this. But it became quite clear... after the second meeting with

Stalin that we were not prepared to do that. And so he lost interest in

the negotiations. And he decided and indeed he had I suppose very good

reason to do so, that we were going-- we the West were going to find it

very difficult to supply Berlin through a long, hard winter, from the

air. And so he decided, well, he'd see what was going to happen and

hopefully before the winter was over we would have to come along and

say, "Please, we want, we want an agreement on your terms. But of

course it didn't happen that way. And the minute we knew the

negotiations were over was when we did ask for a third meeting with

Stalin.

Interviewer:

EXCUSE ME ONE SECOND. MEDIUM SHOT PLEASE. COULD YOU START AGAIN WITH

THE MINUTE WE REALIZED THE NEGOTIATIONS WERE...

Roberts:

And we did we on the Western side had instructions to ask for a third

meeting with Stalin. And when we were told that it was impossible

because he'd already gone off for his summer holidays to the Crimea, we

realized he'd given up the project and that we were wasting our time.

Interviewer:

OK, STAY WITH THAT SHOT. I HAVE ONE LAST QUESTION IS, DO YOU RECALL

WHAT THE BRITISH REACTION WAS TO THE ANNOUNCEMENT THAT THE SOVIETS HAD

TESTED AN ATOMIC BOMB IN 1949?

Roberts:

I don't really. No. I don't. I can't even remember-- in 1949?

Interviewer:

'49, YEAH.

Roberts:

I was in India. I don't recall it. So if I give you any reaction it

would be an Indian one, but I don't even remember that very well.

Interviewer:

WELL, THAT'S A GOOD POINT. LET'S GO TO A WIDE SHOT. WE'VE TOUCHED ON

THIS BEFORE, BUT YOU USED A PHRASE THE OTHER DAY THAT WAS SO NICE THAT

I THOUGHT I'D ASK YOU TO REPEAT IT. IN TALKING ABOUT HOW THE WEST

VIEWED STALIN AND HOW HE VIEWED REACTIONS IN EASTERN EUROPE AFTER THE

WAR, WHAT THE WEST SAW AS BEING EXPANSIONISTIC WAS FOR STALIN HIS

CORDON SANITAIRE. COULD YOU SAY THAT BRIEFLY--

Roberts:

Well I had I... Whilst I think it's impossible to excuse the way Stalin

pursued his policies in Eastern Europe after the war, at the same time,

I think it is important to understand that he was really in the

tradition of Russian policy. I mean, Russian-- the Russians had always

felt that all these countries in what we now call Eastern Europe should

be under their, under their influence- And they felt that at the time

of the Bolshevik revolution at the end of the First World War they had

lost all these areas, when they were weak. And therefore, if they were

strong enough, they should resume their traditional influence, as they

would put it, or control of as we would put it Eastern Europe. In other

words, they would be reversing what had been a cordon sanitaire against

them after the First World War into what would be a cordon sanitaire in

their favor. And a point I think that has to be made here from the

British point of view, is you see, when Stalin claimed the eastern part

of pre-war Poland for Russia, although naturally we in Britain opposed

the methods he used to seize these areas, we couldn't really oppose the

policy. Because, after the First World War, when Poland had been

recreated as an independent country we in Britain had always thought

that the frontier should be on what was known then as the Curzon Line.

Curzon was a British foreign secretary. And that was brought giving the

Russians most of Eastern Poland, the parts that were inhabited by

Ukrainians and Lithuanians. And when we made our alliance with Poland,

in 1939, we'd been very careful not to commit ourselves to restore the

territorial integrity of Poland, because we didn't think that was

right. The independence of Poland, but not territorial integrity. And

and Churchill, you see... got along very well with Shikovski(?) and the

Poles in London, was always pressing them to accept that the Russians

would have to have these areas inhabited by Ukrainians and Lithuanians,

and that Poland would be compensated by taking areas of what had been

Germany but which, if you go back far enough in history had also been

Polish.

[END OF TAPE 0D0263 AND TRANSCRIPT]

Transcript

Transcript

Series: War and Peace in the Nuclear Age

Raw Footage: Interview with Frank Roberts, 1986 [1]

Contributing Organization: WGBH (Boston, Massachusetts)

AAPB ID: cpb-aacip/15-t43hx1628t

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Description

Credits: Publisher: WGBH Educational Foundation
Writer: Roberts, Frank, Sir, 1907-

AAPB Contributor Holdings: WGBH
Identifier: 50f357fcd110245d67272325809ea9a8ad3b1a34 (ArtesiaDAM UOI_ID)
Format: video/quicktime
Color: Color
Duration: 00:00:00

Citations: Chicago: “War and Peace in the Nuclear Age; Interview with Frank Roberts, 1986 [1],” 1986-03-21, WGBH, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC, accessed January 15, 2025, http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-15-t43hx1628t.; MLA: “War and Peace in the Nuclear Age; Interview with Frank Roberts, 1986 [1].” 1986-03-21. WGBH, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Web. January 15, 2025. <http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-15-t43hx1628t>.; APA: War and Peace in the Nuclear Age; Interview with Frank Roberts, 1986 [1]. Boston, MA: WGBH, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Retrieved from http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-15-t43hx1628t