Churchill knew exactly what Uncle Joe was and did not trust him.
At the final meeting of the Big Three FDR was dismissive of Churchill and fawned over Stalin.
Churchill was fuming.
OK, so Stalin lied. FDR was naive. Churchill was fuming. So what?
Really, what could have been done to prevent or alter what wound up happening? In all of the wrangling and handwringing over FDR having “given away Poland,” I always ask how, after June 22, 1941, it could have been prevented. I have come to the conclusion that it could not. It’s settled by asking one simple question: Tell me the date when the United States Army left Poland and turned it over to the Red Army? Simple; it never happened.
All you have to do is look at the maps that have been posted in the New York Times every day for the past several months. The geopolitical reality is that in order to defeat Nazi Germany, the Red Army WILL occupy Poland. We cannot get there before they do. And as the Poles well knew in 1939, once the Red Army is there, it’s not leaving. The only way to get the Red Army out of Poland in 1945 is by forcible ejection through war with the USSR. And there is no way you will get the American or British public to support it. And what applied to Poland applied to all of Eastern Europe.
This outcome was decided when Churchill decided to support Stalin on June 22, 1941. It was confirmed by adoption of a strategy to defeat Nazi Germany with the combintation of British technology, American industry, and Russian blood. The only other alternative was to back Hitler against Stalin, or stay neutral, and in that event, Auschwitz and Treblinka become ongoing business operations. Not much choice in those outcomes, but those are the only two outcomes that were possible.
We didn’t give Poland away because we never possessed it to begin with.