Threads

Italy and the former satellites

Italy, Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary and Finland — whether they were enemies to be punished or states to be recognised, and how that mapped onto who occupied them.

Day by day

The strongest passage on each day, with a link into the record at that exact point.

1. 17 July 1945The Big Three1st plenary · 3 passages

   This so-called ‘Advisory Committee on Uranium’ would soon become the ‘Office of Scientific Research and Development’ (OSRD) in 1941 which is also around the same time that Italian scientist Enrico Fermi – who fled Italy in 1938 to escape the Italian racial laws that affected his Jewish wife – brought his expertise in nuclear chain reactions to the committee. Eventually the United States Army Corps of Engineers joined the ORSD after the U.S. officially entered WWII, making it…

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2. 19 July 1945The Fate Of Europe3rd plenary · 4 passages

   Churchill went on to claim that there was no Greek field division in northern Greece, which was something the British knew as they had their own people there, and discussed the fact, while citing certain figures, that there were many more troops on the borders in Albania, Yugoslavia and Bulgaria than there were in Greece .

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3. 20 July 1945Peace In Italy4th plenary · 8 passages

   After Truman echoed Secretary Byrnes’s adamance at the roundtable that a peace treaty should be quickly drawn up and admission into the United Nations be granted, Stalin fired back by essentially saying that it would not be that easy. He felt that the foreign ministers should further discuss the matter and not exclusively deal with Italy, but rather deal with it at the same time when they deal with the other satellites like Romania, Bulgaria, and Hungary:

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4. 22 July 1945Poland Betrayed6th plenary · 1 passage

   Churchill was alluding to a specific moment at yesterday’s session when Stalin spoke up about the importance of the three governments issuing a statement that would renew diplomatic relations with the former German satellite nations of Romania, Bulgaria, and Finland.

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5. 24 July 1945The Nuclear Age Begins8th plenary · 10 passages

   Stalin was determined to get Churchill and Truman to view the governments of Bulgaria, Hungary, and Romania in the same way they viewed Italy – that is, no favor should be granted to Italy that was not also granted to these states. One essential difference that continued to be pointed out to the Soviets, however, was that all foreign representatives were free to travel about in Italy and report their observations. Since this was not yet possible in Bulgaria, Hungary and…

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6. 27 July 1945The Price Of PeaceRecess · 1 passage

   Moreover, the United States was starting to have buyer’s remorse. When the agreement on Russian participation in the war was brought up at Yalta, the military situation had been entirely different. President Roosevelt, along with military leaders, wanted the Soviet Union in the war, especially as they anticipated the amount of casualties that would result from a ground invasion. However, now in view of what the Americans knew about the Soviets’ actions in eastern Germany and…

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7. 31 July 1945Settling The Polish Question11th plenary · 1 passage

   After talking briefly about prosecuting Nazi war criminals and whether or not the Allies should list names when compiling their list of whom to prosecute, the Big Three decided to wait and discuss it – along with the future of Romania, Bulgaria and Hungary – tomorrow, in addition to tying up any loose ends that needed to be addressed. The Foreign Ministers would meet in the morning, prepare an agenda, and present it to the Big Three tomorrow afternoon.

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