FDR & Stalin: A Not So Grand Alliance, 1943-1945

Franklin Delano Roosevelt is considered one of the most significant figures of the 20th century. This book deals critically with his foreign policy during the crucial time between 1943 and 1945. Amos Perlmutter aims to expose FDR's New Deal war diplomacy as a myth, and to show the results of FDR's ""not-so-grand"" alliance with Joseph Stalin, one of the most ruthless political leaders of the modern world. FDR's war strategy and his postwar vision are subjected to the author's assessment, as well as his diplomatic style in dealing with both Stalin and Churchill. FDR is said to have failed to take political advantage of the economic, military and atomic superiority of the US. In three key areas of the Grand Alliance dispute - the Second Front, Poland, and the division of Germany - FDR is described as having clearly colluded with Stalin against the larger vision of Churchill. By failing to use the Lend-Lease programme as a bargaining chip, FDR ""surrendered"" Eastern Europe to Stalin even before Stalin had begun his long-planned Soviet expansion into the East. A passionate, optimistic, and popular leader, Perlmutter argues that FDR nevertheless failed to see the long-range goals of Stalin. He maintained an idealistic vision of a post-war world presided over by a partnership of two emerging powers, the United States and the Soviet Union. Perlmutter shows how FDR's pursuit of that vision and the concessions he made to realise it resulted not in partnership, but in the legacy of the Cold War. Based on extensive re-evaluation of domestic sources and his study of key foreign ministry documents in the former Soviet Union, the author strives to shed new light on the relationship of FDR and Stalin. Four appendices reproduce material from the declassified Soviet archives.