ROOSEVELT AND THE RUSSIANS

by Ed-ward S. Stettinius. Edited by Walter John-son '37. Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1949,}67 pp.

Any authoritative account of Yalta is of course a contribution to the history of one of the most critical years in modern times; it is a particularly important contribution when the author was himself a participant in the decisions reached there. No one interested in discovering the moment of defection in Soviet-American relations and the causes of this defection can afford to ignore Mr. Stettinius' record. In so far as discussion at Yalta concerned the surrender, occupation and control of Germany, the question of reparations, the voting formula for the Security Council (a wholly American proposal unchanged by the Russians), the formation of the new Polish Provisional Government and many other issues which have had direct bearing on the course of events since the war, Mr. Stettinius' record must be considered virtually exhaustive. Above all, Roosevelt and the Russians disproves the charges frequently made that the Yalta conference included secret protocols and commitments which even today are too unwholesome to be permitted public scrutiny.

Yet in two important respects the book is disappointing. First, the poverty of Mr. Stettinius' insight into the larger sequence of events in which Yalta was but an episode, as well as the complete inadequacy of his personal observations of the dominant figures at the conference, hangs heavily over his story. While the history is rich, the humanity is poor, doubly so when the book is compared, as it should be, with Byrnes' SpeakingFrankly and Sherwood's Roosevelt and Hopkins.

And secondly, the principal charge of the book, which is also its raison d'etre according to the author in his Foreword—that the world suffers today "not from the agreements reached at Yalta, but from the failure of the Soviet Union to honor these agreements"—is never pursued. What promises to be one of Mr. Stettinius' most persuasive arguments passes by default through lack of any adequate supporting evidence.

The reputation of Roosevelt and the Rusxsians must stand or fall on the merits of its reporting of the Yalta conference, which, in the final analysis, was doubtless the responsibility of Mr. Stettinius' able collaborator, Walter Johnson.