Sweden, the United States, and Raoul Wallenberg's Mission to Hungary in 1944

2012 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 97-148 ◽  
Author(s):  
Johan Matz
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Other ◽  
World War ◽  
Soviet Occupation ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Face ◽  
The U.S

This article provides an in-depth examination of the U.S. government's role in the case of Raoul Wallenberg, the courageous Swedish envoy who died mysteriously in the Soviet Union after being arrested by Soviet occupation forces at the end of World War II for unknown reasons. The article recounts how U.S. officials, particularly the diplomat Herschel V. Johnson, tried to alleviate the plight of Hungarian Jews after German forces occupied Hungary in 1944. A key part of this policy was their effort to work with Sweden in enlisting Wallenberg's help. The U.S.-Swedish relationship was never particularly close, and the mistrust that officials in each country felt toward the other side impeded any coordinated action. The article discusses the bureaucratic impediments on the U.S. side and highlights some of the obstacles that Johnson strove to overcome. The article builds on the report produced by the Eliasson Commission documenting the Swedish government's handling of the Wallenberg case. Although the Swedish authorities bore by far the greatest amount of blame for doing nothing in the face of Soviet stonewalling, Matz argues that U.S. officials also made significant misjudgments that may have exacerbated the situation.

Ethics, Technology, and Nuclear War, II : How do nuclear weapons affect our military policy?

Worldview ◽  
1963 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 3-5
Author(s):  
Joseph I. Coffey
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
The United States ◽  
Military Policy ◽  
World War ◽  
Nuclear War ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Conventional Weapons ◽  
The U.S

Since the end of World War II, the United States has aimed at deterring aggression against this country or its allies by a judicious combination of longlange nuclear striking forces and other forces armed with both nuclear and conventional weapons. (The verb "to deter" is defined as "to inhibit" or, in a more absolute usage, as "to prevent." One of the ambiguities of the concept of deterrence is that no one, including ourselves, is clear as to which usage is meant, much less which may prevail.) Of late years, as the Soviet Union achieved and developed a nuclear capability, deterrence has increasingly rested on the ability of the United States to launch a devastating retaliatory blow against anyone attacking the U.S. or, by extension, our allies.

scholarly journals An Examination of American Diplomacy During the Tehran and Yalta Conferences

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-11
Author(s):  
Ariel Davis
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Other ◽  
World War ◽  
Liberal Internationalism ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Post War

Since the end of World War II, the United States has been a leading proponent of liberal internationalism and Western democratic values around the world. Modern historians generally agree that the post-war order, which produced multi-national institutions and promoted democracy, free trade, and peace, was largely shaped by the United States and the other two Allied powers, the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union. This paper explains how the Tehran and Yalta Conferences served as early examples of President Franklin Roosevelt’s vision for international cooperation and American global leadership. Specifically, this essay analyzes how Roosevelt used these conferences to unite the other Allied powers in an effort to end World War II and establish the foundations for the liberal international post war order. To demonstrate the significance of these conferences and their role in the development of the liberal post-war order, conference minutes between the leaders of the Allied powers and their respective foreign policy experts are analyzed. Academic writings from military and international historians are also used to evaluate the execution and outcomes of the agreements reached during these conferences.

Choice in the West

1953 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 133-167
Author(s):  
S. Bernard
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Political ◽  
World War ◽  
The West ◽  
Political Situation ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Working Out

The advent of a new administration in the United States and the passage of seven years since the end of World War II make it appropriate to review the political situation which has developed in Europe during that period and to ask what choices now are open to the West in its relations with the Soviet Union.The end of World War II found Europe torn between conflicting conceptions of international politics and of the goals that its members should seek. The democratic powers, led by the United States, viewed the world in traditional, Western, terms. The major problem, as they saw it, was one of working out a moral and legal order to which all powers could subscribe, and in which they would live. Quite independently of the environment, they assumed that one political order was both more practicable and more desirable than some other, and that their policies should be directed toward its attainment.

The Origins of the Cold War

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
David M. Edelstein
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
The United States ◽  
World War ◽  
Common Cause ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Cold War

This chapter traces the deterioration of Soviet-American relations at the end of World War II and into the beginning of the cold war. While the United States and the Soviet Union found common cause during World War II in defeating Hitler’s Germany, their relationship began to deteriorate as the eventual defeat of Germany became more certain. The chapter emphasizes that it was growing beliefs about malign Soviet intentions, rather than changes in Soviet capabilities, that fuelled the origins of the cold war. In particular, the chapter details crises in Iran, Turkey, and Germany that contributed to U.S. beliefs about long-term Soviet intentions. As uncertainty evaporated, the enmity of the cold war took hold.

scholarly journals Friends – of a Kind: America and its Allies in the Second World War Mary E. Glantz, FDR and the Soviet Union: The President's Battles Over Foreign Policy (Lawrence: Kansas University Press, 2005, $34.95). Pp. 253. ISBN 0 7006 1365 X. Steven Merritt Miner, Stalin's Holy War: Religion, Nationalism and Alliance Politics, 1941–1945 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2003, $55.00). Pp. 407. ISBN 0 8078 2736 3. Mark A. Stoler, Allies in War: Britain and American Against the Axis Powers 1940–1945 (London and New York: Hodder Arnold, 2005, £25.00). Pp. 291. ISBN 0 340 72026 3. David Stone, War Summits: The Meetings that Shaped World War II and the Postwar World (Washington, DC: Potomac Books, 2005, $29.95). Pp. 304. ISBN 1 57488 901 X.

2006 ◽  
Vol 40 (3) ◽  
pp. 635-644
Author(s):  
MARTIN H. FOLLY
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
The United States ◽  
Second World War ◽  
Soviet Bloc ◽  
World War ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Second World

The Second World War continues to be an attractive subject for scholars and even more so for those writing for a general readership. One of the more traditional areas of focus has been the ‘Big Three’ – the alliance of the United States with Britain and the Soviet Union. Public interest in the three leaders – Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin – remains high, and their decisions continue to resonate in the post-Cold War era, as demonstrated by continued (and often ahistorical) references to the decisions made at the Yalta Conference. Consequently, while other aspects of Second World War historiography have pushed into new avenues of exploration, that which has looked at the Grand Alliance has followed fairly conventional lines – the new Soviet bloc materials have been trawled to answer old questions and using the frames of reference that developed during the Cold War. This has left much to be said about the nature of the relationship of the United States with its great allies and the dynamics and processes of that alliance, and overlooked full and rounded analysis of the role of that alliance as the instrument of Axis defeat.

The United States and World War II in Europe

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steve R. Waddell
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
The United States ◽  
Nazi Germany ◽  
World War ◽  
American Military ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The World ◽  
Imperial Japan

With the outbreak of war in Europe, a growing fear of and ultimately a concerted effort to defeat Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany defined American involvement. Competing Allied national and strategic interests resulted in serious debates, but the common desire to defeat the enemy proved stronger than any disagreements. President Franklin Roosevelt, understanding the isolationist sentiments of the American public and the dangers of Nazism and Imperial Japan perhaps better than most, carefully led the nation through the difficult period of 1939–1941, overseeing a gradual increase in American military preparedness and support for those standing up to Nazi Germany, as the German military forces achieved victory after victory. Following American entry into the war, strategic discussions in 1942–1943 often involved ambitious American military plans countered by British voices of moderation. The forces and supplies available made a direct invasion of northern France unfeasible. The American desire to launch an immediate invasion across the English Channel gave way to the Allied invasion of North Africa and subsequent assault on Sicily and the Italian peninsula. The Tehran Conference in November 1943 marked a transition, as the buildup of American forces in Europe and the overwhelming contribution of war materials enabled the United States to determine American-British strategy from late 1943 to the end of the war. The final year and a half of the war in Europe saw a major shift in strategic leadership, as the United States along with the Soviet Union assumed greater control over the final steps toward victory over Nazi Germany. By the end of World War II (May 1945 in Europe and September 1945 in Asia), the United States had not only assumed the leadership of the Western Allies, it had achieved superpower status with the greatest air force and navy in the world. It was also the sole possessor of the atomic bomb. Even with the tensions with the Soviet Union and beginnings of a Cold War, most Americans felt the United States was the leader as the world entered the post-war era.

Demilitarization and Democratization in the Post–World War II World

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephanie Trombley Averill
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Atomic Bomb ◽  
The United States ◽  
Federal Republic Of Germany ◽  
World War ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
United States Occupation ◽  
The Military

This chapter looks at how, in the former Axis powers of Japan and Germany, the United States occupation authorities initially pursued policies that treated democratization and demilitarization as virtually synonymous. They believed a democracy could not flourish in either Japan or the Federal Republic of Germany until the military traditions had been purged from their national character and consciousness. The former aggressors faced total disarmament. Initial plans—embodied most drastically by the Morgenthau Plan to turn Germany into a pastoral country—were severe and uncompromising. However, once the Soviet Union had successfully acquired the atomic bomb, the United States concluded that measured rearmament in both countries was essential for the defense of democracy and the free world.

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