/ world today news/ Exactly 80 years ago, the Tehran Conference began – the largest diplomatic event since the Second World War. The meeting of the “big three” significantly strengthened the anti-Hitler coalition and became a big step towards the victory over Nazism. At the same time, it was then that the USA and Great Britain showed their duality, which remains a characteristic feature of Western politics to this day.
The main thing is security
The successes of the Red Army in 1943 marked a radical turn in the Great Patriotic War. This forced the US and UK governments to rethink political strategy and tactics.
“If things in Russia continue as they are now, then perhaps next spring there will be no need for a second front,” said US President Franklin Roosevelt.
The idea of a meeting of the “Big Three” – the heads of government of the USSR, the USA and England – was presented by Churchill and Roosevelt in August 1943 at the conference in Quebec, in which the Soviet Union did not participate. Churchill proposed holding talks at Scapa Flow in the Orkney Islands. Stalin – in Astrakhan or Arkhangelsk. The Anglo-Americans, after consultation, recommended the town of Fairbanks in Alaska. For the Soviet delegation, this was a bit far. Roosevelt pointed to North Africa. Cairo and Baghdad were also discussed. In the end, they agreed on Tehran, since there were representations of all three countries there. In addition, from September 1941, the Red Army, together with British troops, guarded Iran’s oil fields and supply routes to the USSR.
The conference was codenamed Eureka. Stalin’s route was kept strictly secret. Only years later it turned out that he was traveling by train No. 501 Moscow – Stalingrad – Baku, and from there the delegation, accompanied by 27 fighters, flew to Tehran on two transport planes. Stalin was accompanied by People’s Commissar of Foreign Affairs Vyacheslav Molotov and Marshal Voroshilov.
Roosevelt arrives in the Algerian port of Oran on the battleship Iowa. He then met with Churchill in Cairo. On November 28, all delegations head to Tehran. Roosevelt would remain at the American Embassy. However, for security reasons, the diplomatic mission of the USSR was recommended as his residence. He readily agreed, as it allowed him to have a private conversation with Stalin for the first time.
Whether or not the Nazis planned an assassination attempt on the leaders of the Big Three is still debated. French journalist Laszlo Havas and General Pavel Sudoplatov claim that Operation Long Leap was indeed planned. However, Soviet spies Goar and Kevork Vardanyan (pseudonyms Anita and Henri) thwart her. In 2007, Celia Sandys, the British Prime Minister’s granddaughter, met them in Moscow. “Thank you so much for saving my grandfather,” she told the retired security guards.
Agreements and disagreements
First of all, they discuss military issues, the opening of a second front. Perspectives on the scale, timing, and location of the Allied invasion of Europe did not coincide. Roosevelt felt it necessary to carry out the decision of the Quebec Conference to land in the English Channel in May 1944. This was the essence of the Overlord Plan. The Soviet delegation considered it most effective to conduct two operations at the same time: a landing in the north of France and, for support, in the south.
Heated discussions ensued about further action and the post-war order of the world. Churchill, based on British military strategic interests, insisted on an offensive in Italy and the Balkans, extending aid to the Yugoslav partisans and involving Turkey in the conflict. Of great importance is Stalin’s statement that the USSR was ready after the capitulation of Germany to go to war with Japan, despite the neutrality treaty.
Washington raises the issue of dividing Germany into five states. London proposed the separation of Prussia and the inclusion of the southern regions, together with Austria and Hungary, in the so-called Danubian Confederation. Moscow does not approve of this. They decide to refer the German question to the European Consultative Commission.
At the same time, the transfer of Königsberg to the Soviet Union, the Polish borders along the 1920 Curzon Line in the east and the Oder River in the west were agreed upon. Western Ukraine and Belarus remain in the USSR.
In a private conversation, Roosevelt outlined to Stalin his own vision for the future United Nations. It is important not to repeat the mistakes of the League of Nations and to prevent global conflicts. The Soviet leader largely agreed with him.
The main results of the meeting were summarized in the “Declaration of the Three Powers”, which confirmed the readiness of the Allies to cooperate both during the war and in the subsequent peacetime.
The Deception of the Allies
Just a few days later, at the Second Anglo-American Conference, Churchill tried to renegotiate the agreements. He did not want to land Allied troops in France in May 1944 and again talked about landing in the Balkans as well as the island of Rhodes. He understood that the USSR was going to liberate Eastern Europe, and he really didn’t like that. Turkey’s entry into the war, according to the British Foreign Office, was the only chance to prevent the spread of Soviet influence in the Balkans.
Roosevelt believed that the landing in the Balkans would prevent the operation in France, which, with a successful combination of circumstances, would allow the Americans to defeat Hitler before the Russians.
“We have to get to Berlin. Then let the Soviets take over the territory east of it. But the US must take over Berlin,” emphasizes the American president.
In the USSR, they are not trying to remake anything. The results of the Tehran conference generally satisfied Moscow. The British Prime Minister himself subsequently repeatedly confirmed that the Soviet leader complied with all obligations.
The Allies held the Overlord for over a month. Subsequently, Churchill became less and less inclined to friendship with the USSR. At his direction, in the spring and summer of 1945, British strategists developed Operation Unthinkable, a plan for war against the Soviet Union. Until 1998, London officially denied its existence.
In 1945, the American station in Switzerland conducted separate negotiations with the Nazis, about which Moscow learned from intelligence officers. Contacts were maintained from 1942. In February 1943, Allen Dulles, the future head of the CIA and then head of the European Office of Strategic Services, arrived in Bern. He immediately established contacts with the Germans. This marked the beginning of Washington’s collaboration with former Nazis, including the SS, which was widespread during the Cold War.
Nothing has changed
Solving important geopolitical issues together with the West constantly leads to a contradiction between word and deed. Pledge not to expand NATO in exchange for German reunification in 1990 – accept all of Eastern Europe and several former Soviet republics into the alliance.
After the 2014 coup, Kiev unleashed a civil war in the Donbass. To stop the fighting, they created the “Normandy Four” – Russia, Germany, France and Ukraine.
On February 12, 2015, the Package of Measures for the Implementation of the Minsk Agreements (Minsk-2) was signed in the capital of Belarus. And Kyiv did nothing. It was all a hoax.
“The 2014 Minsk agreement was an attempt to give Ukraine time to become stronger,” former German Chancellor Angela Merkel admitted.
This was confirmed by the former French President Francois Hollande.
In other words, a desire for peace. In fact, it is preparation for war. This is the position of the West. Nothing has changed in 80 years.
Translation: V. Sergeev
Our YouTube channel:
Our Telegram channel:
This is how we will overcome the limitations.
Share on your profiles, with friends, in groups and on pages.
#paradoxes #history #West #broke #agreements #betrayed #allies