Did Churchill really think at Yalta there could have been any other possible outcome?
dfwgator wrote: "Did Churchill really think at Yalta there could have been any other possible outcome?"
It would be difficult to speculate today what Sir Winston Churchill thought yesterday if it weren't for what he said in the speech above, in many other speeches, in his books, etc. The study of history can justify itself only when it is completely and accurately recorded.
Private thoughts could be another matter. Yet Churchill repeats President Truman's comments that it was President Truman's wish "...that (Churchill) should have full liberty to give (Churchill's) true and faithful counsel in these anxious and baffling times...".
Churchill further states that he "shall certainly avail myself of this freedom..."
In my opinion, Churchill did not leave much room for second guessing or wiggle room in any of his public statements. Again in today's terms... what you saw is what you got with Winston Churchill.
"...The President has told you that it is his wish, as I am sure it is yours, that I should have full liberty to give my true and faithful counsel in these anxious and baffling times. I shall certainly avail myself of this freedom, and feel the more right to do so because any private ambitions I may have cherished in my younger days have been satisfied beyond my wildest dreams. Let me however make it clear that I have no official mission or status of any kind, and that I speak only for myself. There is nothing here but what you see..."
"...The outlook is also anxious in the Far East and especially in Manchuria. The Agreement which was made at Yalta, to which I was a party, was extremely favourable to Soviet Russia, but it was made at a time when no one could say that the German war might not extend all through the summer and autumn of 1945 and when the Japanese war was expected to last for a further 18 months from the end of the German war..."