Word: yalta
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...stop until it has redrawn the boundaries of the country. The tide of events is washing away leaders and eroding the ideology of a rigidly orthodox state. Swept away too are many of the old certainties that have given shape and substance to the division of Europe settled at Yalta. Among them is the central and long- standing assumption, in Moscow as well as in the West, that two Germanys are a long-term if not permanent feature of Europe's political landscape...
Stalin did not choose to constrain himself, despite the vow of the three Yalta leaders to help secure "the right of all peoples to choose the form of government under which they will live." Now that the Soviets are loosening the fist they clenched after Yalta, it will be up to two men in the Mediterranean to redeem the promises the Soviets made about Eastern Europe 44 long years...
...American, British and Soviet leaders met at Yalta at a time when the Red Army had liberated most of Eastern Europe from Hitler's troops and were poised to take Berlin. Although the ailing Roosevelt knew that the U.S. could soon assault Japan with the first atom bomb, his top military advisers doubted that its use would be immediately decisive. An American priority at Yalta was to ensure Japan's quick defeat by persuading Stalin to join the Far East conflict once Germany surrendered...
Critics assailed Yalta as a sellout. Even George Kennan, then a top State Department official, denounced the West's refusal "to name any limit for Russian expansion and Russian responsibilities." But Charles Bohlen, assistant to the Secretary of State and one of the designers of the deal, called such criticism naive. Neither Britain nor the U.S. had any way to coerce Stalin, he argued, and "either our pals intend to limit themselves or they...
...primary goal of the West must be to avoid such a crackdown. Thus the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. have a common interest: defining the Soviet Union's proper security concerns and ensuring that they are respected. That is the notion behind Henry Kissinger's proposal that critics have dubbed Yalta II. If the Soviets felt assured that the U.S. would not exploit the changes militarily, they could be expected to allow the reforms more leeway. Bush has indicated support for this approach; in a speech in West Germany in late May, he said he wanted to "let the Soviets know...