and again in 1941-1945 to prevent Germany from achieving hegemony over the Continent and the North Atlantic sea lanes. As Kissinger, however, pointed out, it has done so while at the same time maintaining contradictory attitudes toward foreign policy, one represented by its strong isolationist bent and the other by its tendency to embark on moral crusades to spread American values abroad, as epitomized by President Woodrow Wilson's declaration that America entered World War I 'to end all wars' (18-19).
In various speeches in the late 1930s, President Franklin Roosevelt recognized that Nazi Germany represented a threat to American national interests, but was careful not to get too far ahead of public opinion which opposed direct involvement.
Right after the Pearl Harbor attack, FDR assured British Prime Minister Winston Churchill that the United States gave first priority to defeating Germany (Powaski 50). By vetoing British plans for invasion through the Balkans, in favor of a cross-channel attack which could not be mounted until 1944, FDR effectively ensured, said Solsten, that the Red Army would occupy East Germany (76). At the same time, FDR was unwilling to discuss post-war plans until 1943 in part because of the traditional American aversion to spheres of influence and his belief that the Four Policemen (America, Britain, Russia and possibly China) could maintain world order under a system of collective security within the framework of a United Nations, a carryover of Wilsonian idealism. FDR placed great faith in his ability to win Stalin's trust and to obtain Soviet postwar cooperation.
The attitude of the Soviet Union to the German problem was primarily dictated by the need to insure itself against a repetition of the German invasion which had caused enormous destruction and had caused the death of approximately 27 million Soviet citizens, 14 percent of the population (Loth 1). Naimark said that at the Teheran Confer...