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This information is to accompany Unit Three of the Curriculum Guide.

Student Information Sheet: The Wartime Conferences and the Grand Alliance.

The wartime conferences of the Allies allowed the differing agendas of each power to emerge.

Yalta Conference

In February l945, the "Big Three" (Britain, U.S. and Soviet Union) met at Yalta and agreed that Germany would be divided into zones of occupation, and would pay an indemnity. The Soviets were in a strong position to demand these conditions.

• The Red Army was within 100 miles of Berlin and occupied almost all of Eastern Europe.

• It was agreed that the nations of Eastern Europe had the right to hold free elections, but that the governments should be pro-Soviet.

• Throughout the region, communist-controlled coalition governments became the rule.

Truman and Growing Mistrust Among the Alliance

On April 12, l945, President Roosevelt died and was succeeded by Harry Truman.

• Truman was convinced that the Soviets needed the West far more that the West needed them.

• He curtailed Lend-Lease aid and threatened to stop American economic aid to the Soviets if they did not meet American demands regarding Eastern Europe.

Potsdam Conference

The Potsdam Conference was the last meeting of the "Big Three". Truman demanded that immediate free elections take place in the countries of Eastern Europe. Stalin refused on the grounds that such governments would be anti-Soviet.

• Stalin was determined to have a secure Soviet border, lined with "friendly" governments.

Short of war, the Americans and British could do little to force the Soviets to ease their grip on Eastern Europe.

There were some agreements achieved at Potsdam:

• The Soviet frontier was moved far into what had been Poland. Poland was compensated with former German territory east of the Oder-Neisse river.

• Germany would be divided into zones of occupation, until the final peace treaty was signed.

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This information is to accompany Unit Three of the Curriculum Guide.

Student Information Sheet: Mutual Mistrust and the Atomic Secret

The development of the atomic bomb and spy revelations contributed to a growing tension and mistrust between the western nations and the Soviet Union soon after the end of the war.

The issue of the development of the atomic bomb and access to the technology involved in its development, symbolized the mistrust between the Soviets and the West

At the end of the Second World War, only the United States possessed the technology to construct the atomic bomb. Various plans to place the manufacture and control of atomic weapons under international control were never agreed upon.

• Both the United States and the Soviet Union continued to develop their own highly secretive atomic programs

In September of l945, a Soviet diplomat working at the Soviet Embassy in Ottawa, Igor Gouzenko, defected and revealed the existence of a Soviet spy network.

• A number of civil servants and a Member of Parliament were implicated in the spy network.

• The network operated not only in Canada, but also in the United States and Britain.

• The Gouzenko revelations galvanized western public opinion to view the Soviet Union as a sinister enemy.

The Americans were stunned when the Soviets successfully tested an atomic device in l949.

• In l950, the public became aware that the Soviet Union had obtained valuable information concerning atomic technology through an espionage network that included an American couple, Ethel and Julius Rosenberg.

• They were charged with treason and sentenced to death in April of 1951. They were executed.

The mistrust exhibited over the development of the atomic bomb was replicated on the economic front.