Chapter 8 Summary and Analysis

When Churchill and Roosevelt met in 1941, they produced the Atlantic Charter promoting free trade and free people. Roosevelt had to make concessions to Stalin and Harriman was sent to Moscow along with Lord Beaverbrook. Hitler and Stalin had become enemies. Churchill and Roosevelt negotiated an armaments supply deal under Lend-Lease.

The negotiations with the Soviets and the discovery of ten thousand Polish officers massacred by the Soviets began to change Harriman's views. He started to believe that the Americans must be sterner in their dealings with Moscow or there would be problems later.

Both Harriman and Acheson believed in providing post war aid to war torn economies but the Soviets wanted control of anything within their borders. Harriman finally agreed to become the United States Ambassador to Russia in 1943, an appointment he had refused in the past. Harriman worried about the...