Okay, but I have yet to hear anyone put forth a practical alternative given the facts as they existed at the time, and "turn Patton loose" doesn't count. The Russians already had their armies in Eastern Europe and wee were not going to try to kick them out in the aftermath of Germany's defeat. Any president who tried something like that would have been impeached immediately.
Our troops in Europe wanted nothing else but to go home. The fact that some of them were going to have to go to the Pacific didn't sit well with them or their families; A shooting war with the Russians just wasn't going to happen.
What happened to the Eastern Europeans sucks. But history is full of such tragedies.
A radioactive crater in the middle of Red Square might have had a most positive effect in keeping Eastern Europe free. There has to be a special circle of Hell for Stalin, FDR and Truman.
Namsman sends.
"Okay, but I have yet to hear anyone put forth a practical alternative given the facts as they existed at the time, and "turn Patton loose" doesn't count. The Russians already had their armies in Eastern Europe and wee were not going to try to kick them out in the aftermath of Germany's defeat. Any president who tried something like that would have been impeached immediately."
Here's an alternative...
FDR didnt *have* to have soviet spy Alger Hiss as one of his top State Dept advisors. FDR might have paid attention to the reports back to *1941* that suspect Hiss of spying ... that just *might* have helped.
Hiss helped engineer the Yalta give-away and set up the UN. Both gave USSR superpower status that they didnt deserve, and when spies like the Rosenbergs helped give Stalin the bomb, it was clear we were in a 2 superpower Cold War.
We could have demanded honest democratic elections in every eastern european state.
Standing up for eastern european freedom and sovereignty was not only possible, it was the least we owed to the soldiers who died in WWII for the cause of freedom.
WWII started because Poland's soveriegnty was violated. That violation didnt end until 1989.