ar East it had lost in the Russo-Japanese War of 1905. It did so with the acquiescence of the West, which lacked the military power to prevent it, but also because President Roosevelt had high hopes of postwar Soviet-American cooperation. According to Gaddis,
Roosevelt had built his whole strategy upon the expectation that the wartime alliance would survive the end of the war. He had sought to ensure this through public deference to Soviet security interests, mixed with subtle behind-the-scenes pressures to encourage Moscow's cooperation (26).
Even before the war in Europe ended, tensions had begun to develop over the tactics used by the Soviet Union to dominate the affairs of eastern Europe. Shortly before his death, Roosevelt reportedly said: "Averell [Harriman, American Ambassador to the Soviet Union] is right . . . we can't do business with Stalin . . . He has broken every one of his promises made at Yalta" (Thomas 121).
FDR's successor, President Harry Truman, was reluctant in 1945 and early 1946 to rupture relations with America's recent Soviet allies and wavered in the face of conflicting advice. He and his first Secretary of State, James Byrnes, alternated between making protests to the Russians and seeking to arrange a modus vivendi with them. According to Chace, "in 1945 and 1946 American foreign policy fluctuated like a compass needle seeking the right azimuth" (135).
The United States reduced its armed forces in Europe from eight million in April 1945 to 400,000 a year later (Thomas 145). It had intervened twice in the 20th century to prevent any one power (Germany) from dominating the affairs of Europe and choking off its Atlantic sea lanes. American military strategists understood very well that by the end of the Second World War air power would soon be capable of operating on an intercontinental basis. Its senior policy makers were, therefore, quite sensitive and felt vulnerable (despite the American mo...