National Affairs: Nice Friend

The Administration's long-standing explanation for the secret Yalta deal was not a pretty story, but it was nicely detailed. Yalta was pictured in subsequent official communiques and speeches as the place where Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin, sitting together as brotherly men concerned with establishing enduring world peace, drew the blueprint for the United Nations. Stalin, a friendly fellow at heart, needed a little encouragement to make sure that he would help out in the war against Japan. Hence the West's generosity* at Yalta to the U.S.S.R.

This week Dean Acheson dropped a bombshell—an explanation of Yalta that was a strange and...

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