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It was because I was aware of the reputation of the Red Army that I listened carefully to see if the speaker would have anything negative to say about the troops who liberated their camp. It may be that they were all so malnourished that the soldiers were simply moved by pity rather than lust.

It might also be that the Russian soldiers who liberated her camp were not presided over by a powerful Party hack or GRU type, as many Soviet military groups were. Rape and pillage were particular tactics of the Bolsheviks who even in the military were little better than street thugs.

I don’t say any of this in attempt to excuse or mitigate the Soviet Union or the Red Army. Largely, I’m with Patton on this matter. We had a chance to just keep going and rid ourselves of them, but let’s face it, FDR was pathetic and Truman wasn’t up to speed even at the time he took over.

We had made a deal with the Soviets which might have looked good in retrospect if the atom bomb had been a dud. FDR was desperate to get Stalin to go to war with Japan. It wasn't until July that Truman knew that the bomb would work. As it turned out, Stalin kept his promise to declare war on Japan within 2-3 months of the end of the war in Europe (declaring war exactly 3 months after VE-Day).

If the war against Japan had dragged on into 1946, Americans would have been happy that Russians were dying in the war and not as many Americans. I don't think many Americans in May 1945 would have welcomed Truman saying, "Germany has surrendered but now we're going to push the Russians out of Germany. We'll finish off the war with Japan eventually."

Japan was the enemy, while the Soviets had been our allies for the past several years. The US had about 400,000 killed in the war up to the time Germany surrendered--what American President would ask the country for a few hundred thousand more Americans dead to improve the postwar situation in Europe, when few people had any inkling of what was about to emerge in the countries occupied by the Red Army?