FOR THE TEACHER,
The intent of "The Spy's Dilemma" is to immerse your students into a
world of urgency and secrecy out of
which they hopefully will emerge educated in several important respects. Most important, this exercise is intended
to give your students the historian's experience of having to analyze and evaluate information in historical
documents. They are asked to choose from among seventeen documents from the holdings of the Harry S. Truman
Library, all dated from 1945, the five that in their judgment contain information that is the most sensitive, the most
important, and the most pertinent to the informational needs of one nation struggling against another in the
implicitly hostile environment that came to be called "Cold War." The seventeen documents have greatly
varying
importance and sensitivity. Some contain information that in 1945 would have been greatly advantageous to the
Soviet Union vis-a-vis the United States had they possessed it; others contain valueless information, and some
contain information that would have been only mildly interesting to the Soviets. In making their choices, your
students will be introduced to a selection of historical documents and will be made familiar with at least some of
the kinds of information primary source materials can contain. Since their purpose is to analyze kinds of
information rather than to absorb all the information they encounter, your students will participate actively with
historical data in the way that historians do when they conduct research.
A secondary objective of this exercise is that your students learn something about the events of one of the
most remarkable years of the twentieth century. 1945 was a year when a world war ended, and when the entire
world regime that fought the war ended in many respects too; and it was the year when the new, bipolar regime of
adversarial superpowers began to emerge. The documents in this exercise describe in different ways the emergence
of the new "Cold War" world. The descriptions that are given below for each document should permit you to
use
this exercise as a supplement to a post World War 11 American history unit.
Each of the seventeen documents are given point scores in the descriptions that follow. A ten point score
means that the information the document contains is crucial; a 0 point score means it is valueless. The maximum
score that can be achieved from selecting five document is 45 points; the minimum score is 2 points. It is
recommended that your students' point totals be interpreted as follows:
45 points - You are made a member of the Politburo and receive a kiss from Stalin.
36-44 points - You get a week's vacation at Stalin's house in the Crimea and a raise in pay.
22-35 points - You get a tin medal and are quickly forgotten.
11-21 points - Your next assignment is cleaning dirty things in Siberia.
3-10 points - "COUNTER-REVOLUTIONARY" is tattooed all over your body and you are imprisoned in the
gulag.
2 points - You, your family and everyone you have ever known, spoken to or looked at are summarily executed.
You will probably want to explain to those of your students who earn low scores and unsavory rewards that a
spy's life is a hazardous one, and that historians and history students too who do not know how to analyze the data
of their field of study must suffer just as a failed spy must.
"The Spy's Dilemma" was designed to take about one and one-half hours, or about two class periods. You are
encouraged, though, to adapt this exercise to your classroom needs. The number of documents given to students and
the number they are asked to choose can be reduced to fit the available time. The amount of discussion that follows
the document choice is entirely personal to individual teachers and classes. Your students may do their spy's work
individually or in groups.
Descriptions of each of the seventeen documents follow. "BACKGROUND" descriptions of several of the
documents identify people and events mentioned in the documents, in the order of their mention. The individual
names and events identified are separated by double asterisks. An introduction for your students, intended both to
tell them the rules of the game and to get them in a spy's mood, accompanies the documents. They should read this
introduction before they begin their spying.
Memorandum, William J. Donovan to President, Feb. 23, 1945. 2 pages.
Not long after Truman became President, he was given a copy of a document that William 1. Donovan, the
Director of the Office of Strategic Services, had written to President Franklin D. Roosevelt before he died. In this
memorandum, Donovan warns that people in the intelligence services are trying to "sabotage" the
government's
effort to reorganize these service.
Although this document would inform the Soviets that the American government is considering the
reorganization of its intelligence services - which the Soviets would already have learned from the press stories
cited - and that the old intelligence offices are probably resisting being reorganized, it does not say much else,
despite its portentous and somewhat clandestine tone. The Soviets probably had enough experience with
bureaucracy to know that many bureaucrats dislike change, and that any sizable government organization is likely
to have some petty saboteurs. The spy probably should not film this document, despite its slight interest to his
superiors. 3 points.
BACKGROUND: JCS stands for Joint Chiefs of Staff, a four member body composed, in 1945, of high ranking
representatives of the Army, the Navy, and the Army Air Forces. The Joint Chiefs of Staff were the President's
main advisory group during World War 11 on strategy and military policy.
Memorandum, not dated (ca. 1945), beginning "1. Create directly under the President..." with attached
"Intelligence Flow Chart," not dated. 3 pages.
Truman realized very quickly on becoming President that the government's intelligence gathering and analysis
operations were badly organized. Intelligence units were scattered in several agencies. Their missions were often
unclear and their lines of communication to the President uncertain. This document is representative of the advice
that was coming to the President in 1945 urging a drastic reorganization of the country's intelligence services. The
specific recommendations given in this document were not followed - a National Security Intelligence Board was
not created. But the need to reorganize the intelligence services was very great, and finally, in 1947, the Central
Intelligence Agency was created by the National Security Act.
This would be a fair choice for the spy to film. The Soviet Union would certainly want to know what sort of
intelligence operations the United States was planning to create. The information in this document, though, would
be of limited interest to the Soviets. The specific recommendations it makes were not taken, and the information it
contains does not add up to much more than a statement that the American government's intelligence work should
be reorganized. 5 points.
BACKGROUND: The FBI is the Federal Bureau of Investigations; during World War 11, it conducted intelligence
operations in South America. ** The FEA is The Foreign Economic Administration; it was established in
September, 1943 to consolidate government activities relating to foreign economic affairs. ** The OSS is the
Office of Strategic Services; it was established in June, 1942 to collect and analyze strategic information for the
Joint Chiefs of Staff and to conduct covert operations. ** The OWI is the Office of War Information; it was
established in June, 1942 to create and distribute wartime propaganda at home and abroad. ** FCC is the Federal
Communications Commission.
Cable, Winston Churchill to President Truman, May 12, 1945. 3 pages.
Winston Churchill first publicly used the famous phrase "iron curtain"
during a speech given in Fulton, Missouri on March 5, 1946, over two
months after the spy's intrusion into the President's secret safe.
Stalin
would be very interested to learn that Churchill had used this compelling
and contentious phrase many months earlier - only four days, in fact,
after the end of World War II. Stalin would probably have understood its
use at this early date to mean that his British and American allies had
turned against the interests of the Soviet Union as soon as the Germans
were defeated, and perhaps before. Churchill's warning to Truman about an
"iron curtain" segregating east from west would probably have confirmed
in Stalin a distrust of Britain and America and a determination to
maintain Soviet control of Eastern Europe. He would be pleased that the
spy chose to film this document.
9
points.
BACKGROUND: Winston Churchill was Prime Minister of Great Britain from May
1940 to July 1945, and then again from October 1951 to April 1955.
**Churchill, Stalin, and Franklin D. Roosevelt met at Yalta in the Crimea
from February 4 to 11, 1945. Although nothing definite about the future of
Poland and the other nations of Eastern Europe was decided at the Yalta
Conference, agreements made there pledged the Soviet Union, the United
States, and Great Britain to encourage the development in these countries
of democratic governments. The Soviet Union did not abide by these
agreements. **Churchill's iron curtain runs from the northeastern
boundary of what used to be West Germany to the northeastern part of
Italy, bordering Yugoslavia, to the northwestern part of Greece, bordering
Albania. **By early May 1945, American forces had advanced into the
eastern part of Germany and the western part of Czechoslovakia. As a
result of earlier agreements among the allies regarding their eventual
occupation zones, the Americans withdrew westward to the former eastern
boundary of West Germany. ** As Soviet armies came into the eastern parts
of Germany, millions of Germans fled westward. **The "personal meeting"
with Stalin that Churchill recommended to Truman occurred at Potsdam,
Germany, from July 17 to August 2, 1945.
Memorandum of Conversation, prepared by Charles E. Bohlen, April 20, 1945. Participants: the President, the
Secretary of State, Mr. Grew, Ambassador Harriman, and Mr. Bohlen. 3 pages.
The information in this document about U.S.-U.S.S.R. relations is very important and sensitive, as the "Top
Secret" marking suggests. Stalin would be very interested to read about the advice Truman was getting from
his
advisers about the Soviet Union, particularly that of W. Averell Harriman, the U.S. Ambassador in Moscow.
Harriman spoke alarmingly to 1ruman in this meeting about the Soviet Union, describing the spread of its power
and its influence westward as "a Barbarian invasion of Europe." Stalin would also be interested in
Truman's
statement that while the United States could not get 100 percent of what it wanted when dealing with the Soviets, it
would try to get 85 percent. This document would warn Stalin that he can expect the United States to resist bold
Russian moves into Europe, and he would know that he must move carefully to achieve his country's goals in that
region, and particularly in the eastern European countries that lay between it and Germany.
This document is an excellent choice for the spy to film. 10 points.
BACKGROUND: Charles E. Bohlen, who served as this meeting's notetaker, was Assistant to the Secretary of
State for White House liaison. ** Joseph C. Grew was Under Secretary of State. ** The San Francisco conference
referred to was the United Nations Conference on International Organization held in April and May of 1945. It
drew up the charter of the United Nations. ** The "Polish question" refers to the controversy surrounding
the
Soviet Union's apparent imposition of a Communist government on Poland. ** The Yalta Conference was a
meeting of Franklin D. Roosevelt, Winston Churchill and Joseph Stalin the purpose of which was to make
fundamental decisions about the nature of the postwar world. It was held in the Soviet city of Yalta in the Crimea in
February 1945. ** The Lublin Poles were a group of Communists in the city of Lublin in eastern Poland whom the
Soviet Union had organized into a provisional government in 1944. ** Stanislav Mikolajczyk was the head of the
Polish provisional government that had been based in London since 1941; it was composed of representatives of
democratic parties of prewar Poland.
Cable, General Eisenhower to General Marshall, April 22, 1945. 1 page.
Cooperation among countries sometimes presents delicate public relations problems. In this document, Gen.
Dwight D. Eisenhower describes the measures he is taking to ensure that the American, British and Soviet
governments will be able to release simultaneously news of the initial linking of the American, British, and Soviet
forces in Germany. Although the information in this document is sufficiently important that it was classified as
"Secret," it lost all sensitivity once the news was released by the three countries.
The spy should not choose this document. 0 points
BACKGROUND: American and Soviet troops linked up on the Elbe River in Germany on April 25, 1945.
Germany was cut in two. A statement announcing the junction of allied forces was issued simultaneously in
Washington, D.C., London, and Moscow.
Memorandum of Conversation, prepared by Charles E. Bohlen, April 23, 1945. Participants: the President, the
Secretary of State, Mr. Molotov, Ambassador Harriman, Ambassador Gromyko, Admiral Leahy, Mr. Pavlov, and
Mr. Bohlen. 3 pages.
This document reports on the meeting with the Soviet Foreign Minister, Vaycheslav Molotov, that Truman had
prepared for in his meeting with his advisers on April 20, which is described in Document 4. But whereas
Document 4 would be an excellent choice for the spy to make, this document would be a bad one. This document,
like Document 4, contains important and sensitive information about U.S.-U.S.S.R. relations. But there is one very
important difference between the two documents. The meeting described in Document 4 included only Truman's
advisers; the meeting described in this document includes Molotov and the Soviet Ambassador to the United States,
Andre Gromyko, which means that Stalin got a very full account of the meeting immediately after its occurrence.
Stalin would lose his temper if the spy wastes a precious frame of film on this document. 0 points.
BACKGROUND: For identification of the Crimea decision, San Francisco discussions, the Polish issue and
Charles E. Bohlen, see the BACKGROUND section for Document 4. ** Vaycheslav Molotov was the Soviet
Foreign Minister. ** The "Prime Minister" reference is to Winston Churchill, Prime Minister of Great
Britain. **
"Economic collaboration" refers to the presumed Soviet hope that the United States would give them economic
aid
to rebuild their war-damaged country.
Henry L. Stimson to President Truman, April 24, 1945. 1 page.
In this letter, Secretary of War Stimson asks, urgently and in very guarded language, for an appointment with
the President to discuss a "highly secret" matter crucial to the country's foreign relations. This letter
might well be
tempting to the spy, but he should not film it. The "highly secret matter" to which Stimson refers is the
development of the atomic bomb, which was old news, and very public, by the end of 1945. The only thing that
Stalin might find surprising in the letter is that Truman's Secretary of War did not give him a good briefing about
the atomic bomb project until two weeks after Truman's becoming President. 1 point.
Longhand notes by Harry S. Truman, July 25 and July 26, 1945. 3 pages.
These documents are entries from President Truman's diary. The spy might well not be able to restrain himself
from filming them. The July 25 entry gives a startling account of the world's first atomic bomb explosion, and gives
as well an indication of how the Americans intend to use the weapon. The spy may feel that Stalin will be
particularly interested that no mention is made of the United States using the strength that the bomb will give them
to coerce the Soviet Union into doing what the Americans want. The spy may also feel that Stalin will be
particularly interested in President Trumans' several expressions of hostility toward the
Soviet Union. The Soviet leadership can learn from these documents that the United States might well oppose their
pursuit of their interests in the world.
If the spy films these documents, he has made a good choice. They express President Truman's most private
feelings on important subjects. All they lack, from the point of view of this exercise, is the kind of specific and
highly sensitive defense or foreign policy information that would give them a crucial value for the Soviet national
interest. 8 points.
BACKGROUND: At the time Truman wrote this document, he was meeting with Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin and
British Prime Minister Winston Churchill in Potsdam, Germany, a suburb of Berlin, to reach agreements regarding
arrangements for the postwar world, and especially the establishment of occupation zones and a postwar
government for Germany. ** Admiral Louis Mountbatten was Supreme Allied Commander, South East Asia, and
an adviser to British Prime Minister Churchill. ** Gen. George C. Marshall was U.S. Army Chief of Staff. ** The
"experiment in the New Mexican desert" was the explosion of the first atomic bomb near Alamogordo, New
Mexico, on July 16, 1945. ** "The old capital or the new" refers to Kyoto and Tokyo, both of which had been
removed from the list of potential targets for the first two atomic bombs. ** The "warning statement asking
the
Japs to surrender," which came to be known as the Potsdam Declaration, was issued on July 26; its terms
amounted
to unconditional surrender. ** The "Bolshevik) land grab" refers to the Soviet Union's unilateral
alteration of
borders in areas of eastern Europe occupied by their armies. Essentially, Stalin moved Poland to the west, keeping
some of its eastern territory for the Soviet Union, and compensating Poland with some of German's eastern
provinces. Truman felt that territorial changes should be made through treaties agreed upon by the allied powers,
not through unilateral action. ** The "movement of populations" refers to the millions of people who were
dislocated as a result of border and governmental changes and other causes when World War 11 ended. ** Ivan
Maisky, a former Soviet ambassador to Great Britain, put forward a definition of war booty that would allow the
United States and Great Britain to keep the German naval fleet and merchant marine that they had acquired at
the end of the war. ** Gen. Brehon B. Somervell was chief of U.S. Army services forces. ** Truman tried
throughout his presidency to persuade Congress to pass a law creating Universal Military Training, which he
conceived as a youth rehabilitation program. ** Jefferson Caffery was the U.S. ambassador to France.
Letter, Joseph Stalin to President Harry S. Truman, July 29, 1945. Written in Russian, without translation. 1 page.
This letter expresses Stalin's concern that the proposed export of coal from occupied Germany to other
European countries may lead to unrest in Germany. The Russian language's cyrillic alphabet gives this document a
very portentous appearance, and the spy, if he is foolish, may choose to film it. If he does, though, he will be
expending some of the precious film in his camera in order to send Stalin a copy of one of his own letters to
Truman. The Soviet dictator, who was not famous for his sense of humor or his sweet laughter, might well turn red
with temper and throw something across the room on receiving a picture of this document from the spy. 0 points,
and a letter of reprimand is put in the spy's dossier.
BACKGROUND: Following the end of World War 11, the allied powers established zones of occupation in
defeated Germany--one each for the United States, the Soviet Union, Great Britain, and France. The intent was that
the four countries were to govern Germany cooperatively until a new German state could be
organized. The German economy was supposed to be administered as a single entity. Tensions between the Soviet
Union and the other three occupying powers increased very rapidly, however, and Germany gradually developed
into two separate countries - a western nation composed of the American, British and French occupation zones,
and an eastern nation composed of the Soviet occupation zone. Germany was finally reunified in 1991.
Letter, Harry S. Truman to Bess Truman, July 31, 1945. 4 pages.
In this handwritten letter to his wife, President Truman describes his meetings that day in Potsdam, Germany,
with Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin, British Prime Minister Clement Attlee and others. The spy would probably be
startled to read such frank statements of President Truman's feelings and opinions, and would be impressed by a
document written in the President's own hand. He would also probably be intrigued by the mysterious sentence,
"[Stalin] doesn't know it but I have an ace in the hole and another one showing -so unless he has threes or
two pair
(and I know he has not) we are sitting all right."
This is a remarkable document, and the spy could reasonably choose it. Besides the sentence quoted above, it
contains Truman's views regarding the Soviet Union's desire for reparations from Germany, and the problem of
fixing a postwar boundary between Germany and Poland. This letter, though, is not nearly as good a choice as it
appears. Truman probably told Stalin during their meetings how he felt about the reparations and German-Polish
border issues; and the mysterious "ace in the hole" sentence almost certainly refers to the atomic bomb,
the
existence of which became public when one was dropped on Hiroshima, Japan, on August 6, 1945. Still, Stalin
would certainly enjoy to read this letter, even if he did not learn very much new from it, and he would probably not
feel inclined to execute the spy who filmed it. 5 points.
BACKGROUND: "Uncle Joe" is Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin. ** James F. Bymes
was Secretary of State; he
replaced Edward R. Stettinius in that position in July, 1945. ** Clement Attlee and Ernest Blevin replaced
Winston Churchill and Anthony Eden as British Prime Minister and Foreign Minister as a result of British
elections in late July 1945, midway through the Potsdam Conference. ** The Soviet Union wanted to extract
billions of dollars from the German economy to compensate for German damages inflicted during the war. Truman
felt that this issue, like the issue of boundary changes, should be dealt with through treaties, and he avoided
making any commitment to the Soviets regarding it during the Potsdam Conference. ** For the Polish boundary
question, see the BACKGROUND section for Document 8.
Letter, A. J. May to President Truman, Sept. 8, 1945. 4 pages.
Congressman A.J. May's letter to President Truman, with its conspiratorial tone and based as it is on the
confidential reports of "reliable sources," will certainly be tempting to the spy. Congressman May tells
the
President of a sharp division between pro-Soviet and anti-Soviet analysts
within the War Department's Military
Intelligence Division, and of the suppression of opinions unfavorable to the Soviet Union. One analyst is even
referred to as a suspected communist or "fellow traveler." The Congressman goes on to cast
suspicion on the Office of Strategic Services, a wartime intelligence agency, and on many of the American people.
Although this document would be intriguing to the Soviets, they would probably recognize that the
information it contains is unreliable. They might be surprised at the strange atmosphere of suspicion that fills this
letter, and they might feel they had learned something foreboding about American public opinion toward the Soviet
Union. 2 points.
BACKGROUND: "G-2" refers to the U.S. Army General Staff's Military Intelligence Division. ** "Fellow
traveler" is slang term developed apparently in the 1930's to describe a person who believed in and was
sympathetic
to the ideas of the Communist Party, but was not a member and took no active part in it. ** Marshal Tito was the
Communist prime minister of Yugoslavia. ** The continuing threat of Soviet aggression against Turkey caused
Truman in August 1946 to decide that the United States must resist Soviet expansionism in the region. A policy of
"containment" of the Soviet Union, which came to be called the Truman Doctrine, was announced in President
Truman's message to Congress in March 1947.
Memorandum, Robert P. Patterson to the President, September 26, 1945. 3 pages
There was probably no issue more important to the Soviet Union in 1945 than the development of atomic
weapons. The United States had them, and the Soviet Union was working feverishly to create their own. Stalin
would have been extremely interested to know what kind of advice President Truman was getting regarding atomic
weapons. This document would inform him of the very articulate advice Truman was getting from the War
Department. Stalin would probably be intrigued by the idealistic - he might say naive -proposals to share
information and control the development of atomic weapons. "We should exert our best efforts," Paterson
wrote,
"to prevent an armament race in production of atomic bombs." Despite such sentiments, of course, the arms
race
occurred. The Soviet Union exploded an atomic bomb in 1949, and nuclear weapons were created in thousands in
the years that followed.
This document is a good choice for the spy to film. It would be a stronger choice if President Truman had in
some way indicated on it his response to Patterson's ideas. 8 points.
BACKGROUND: Henry L. Stimson was Secretary of War. ** The United States in 1946 offered to put its atomic
weapons facilities under the control of the United Nations if the other countries of the world would agree that the
United Nations would control all such facilities and that no individual country could lawfully make atomic bombs.
This proposal, called the Baruch Plan after Bernard Baruch, the U.S. representative to the United Nations Atomic
Energy Commission who put it forward, included provisions that would have caused the United Nations to operate
atomic weapons facilities and sites containing minerals used in the production of atomic weapons wherever these
facilities and sites existed - including the Soviet Union - and it also provided for punishment of nations that
violated the international control principle. The Soviet Union opposed the Baruch Plan in the United Nations,
which ultimately failed to approve it.
Memorandum, Harry S. Truman to James F. Byrnes, November 24, 1945, with attached memorandum, not signed,
not dated, beginning "As of possible interest..." 2 pages.
The phrase "reliable informants of the Bureau" used in this document suggests strongly that it is an
extract
from a report to President Truman from J. Edgar Hoover, director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. It is
interesting that Truman thought enough of this report to forward it to his Secretary of State. This action hints at the
mystery that communism had for the American imagination in the years following World War 11. Although we
don't know what disputes and power struggles were going on within the Soviet Communist Party in late 1945, it is
probable that Stalin would have chuckled at the contents of this document, and for this laugh he would be willing to
award the spy 2 points. He may feel, too, that he has learned something from this document about the extent of
understanding within the American government of events within the Soviet Communist Party. 2 points.
BACKGROUND: Earl Browder was general secretary of the Communist Party of the United States from 1930 to
1944. He was removed from this position in 1944 because he had begun to feel that capitalism and socialism might
be able to coexist peacefully. He was expelled from the Communist Party in 1946. ** Since the Soviet government
was throughout the history of the Soviet Union secretive to an extreme degree, and since power was highly
concentrated in the politburo of the Soviet Communist Party, American policymakers were often reduced to
listening to information about the Soviet leadership that was largely rumor and intuition, and wondering anxiously
about the stability of the Soviet government and of the policies it followed.
Memorandum, Secretary of Commerce Henry A. Wallace to Harry S. Truman, December 4, 1945. 3 pages.
Secretary of Commerce Wallace makes a strong argument to President Truman for allowing German scientists
in the American controlled areas of Germany to emigrate to the United States. These scientists, Wallace said, would
contribute to American science and industry.
The spy might well feel uncertain about whether or not to film this document. It does not bear a security
marking, which suggests that the government did not consider the information to be sensitive; but, on the other
hand, the talk of bringing German scientists to the United States has an enticing clandestine sound to it. The spy
might notice that of the five scientists mentioned in the document, two are physicists and two chemists, and that
one in each field has a specialty relating to nuclear energy. These scientists might well end up working for the
government and in American defense industries, developing exotic new weapons that could be used against the
Soviet Union.
This document would be an intelligent choice for the spy to film, even though its interest and importance are
reduced by the fact that it contains unclassified information written by the Secretary of Commerce. It would,
though, warn the Soviets about a very important American program which was still in an early stage of
implementation at the end of 1945 and whose purpose was precisely to bring German scientists to the United States
to help develop weapons. Code named "Operation Paperclip" in 1946, this program brought over 1,600 German
scientists to the United States over a period of almost forty years. The Soviets certainly had reason to want to know
as much as possible about this program. 6 points.
Hand sketch, "Map Room Plot, 12 Dec. '45," with attached one page of ship silhouette tags. 2 pages.
These sketches were made by George M. Elsey, a young U.S. Navy officer assigned during World War 11 to
the Map Room, a highly secret communications center located on the ground floor of the White House. Apparently,
the furniture in the Map Room was rearranged at about the time President Franklin D. Roosevelt went to Yalta in
the Soviet Union to meet with Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill. This
was in February 1945. Elsey's drawings show how the desks and filing cabinets were moved around at that time.
The ship silhouettes were presumably pinned to the maps that hung in the Map Room to indicate battle actions and
ship movements.
Although Stalin might be slightly amused to get the glimpse inside a secret area of the American White House
that these two pages would give him, he would probably order the spy who filmed them to be sent to the far north to
sweep the ice fields. 1 point.
Entry from the diary of Eben A. Ayers for December 17, 1945. 1 page.
Eben A. Ayers was the assistant to White House press secretary Charles Ross during the years 1945-50. His
diary is the only one by a member of Truman's White House staff to cover most of the presidential years. Ayers
often met with the President and participated in candid conversations about the day's events. The diary entry for
December 17, 1945, describes President Truman's confused feelings about the Soviet Union's actions in the
countries on its western borders. He was clearly troubled by these actions, but he did not know what to do about
them. The brief exchange between Truman and press secretary Charles Ross that Ayers records indicates that
Truman felt that only military force could prevent the Soviets from expanding into neighboring countries. "I
don't
know what we're going to do," he concluded.
This would be a good choice for the spy. Stalin would certainly be intrigued to read this record of the feelings
of the American President toward the Soviet Union's expansionist policy. The United States, after all, was the only
country in the world that had the strength to oppose the Soviet Union. Stalin would know from reading this
document that his potential adversary was at least considering using force to oppose his country.
9 points.
BACKGROUND: Although the Soviet Union formed and recognized a Communist government when its army
entered Poland in 1944, the United States and Britain hoped that this government could be broadened and that
elections would be held in Poland. Elections were finally held in January 1946, but the Communists engineered the
results to ensure their own victory. ** The Soviet Union imposed a Communist government on Bulgaria when their
army advanced into that country in September 1944. ** The Black Sea straits are the only water passage between
the Black Sea and the Mediterranean Sea. The right of passage through the straits had been an issue frequently
contested in European diplomacy throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, particularly between the
Soviet Union (formerly the Russian empire) and Turkey, through whose territory the straits passed. Stalin
complained at the Potsdam Conference that current international convention gave Turkey the right to block the
straits to Soviet ships much too easily, and he asked Truman how the United States would feel if Panama could
close the Panama Canal to American ships so easily. Truman
responded by proposing that the Black See straits, the
Panama Canal, the Suez Canal, and other key water
passages be made freely accessible to the civilian ships of all countries. Stalin did not accept this proposal, and the
Black See straits problem was left unresolved. Truman worried that the Soviet Union might someday simply seize
the straits.
Robert P. Paterson to President Truman, December 28, 1945, with attached map of the world.
3 pages.
This document describes an ambitious program being undertaken by the War Department to use aerial
photography to map as many areas of the world as possible that might be of interest to the United States. The
Soviet intelligence analysts would be very interested to read this document, which declared the United States'
desire to have accurate visual information about the whole world, a desire which would in time lead to a program
of photographing the world, and especially the Soviet Union, from outer space. This document would help the
Soviet intelligence services to understand what they must do to remain competitive with the Americans. If the spy
films this document, he will have made a very good choice. 9 points.