The Road to Berlin (104 page)

The conference at Dumbarton Oaks, convened on 21 August 1944, had settled the main outlines of what was to become the United Nations Organization, but two substantial issues remained to be solved—the voting formula to be adopted in the Security Council and the actual membership of the General Assembly. The principle of the right of veto ascribed to each Permanent Member of the Security Council, for all the complex and involved arguments which proliferated about it, had attained general acceptance: in fact, the Russians through Gromyko insisted on 13 September on nothing less than unanimity among the great powers—a ‘final and unalterable’ decision, one which was not appreciably altered by President Roosevelt’s request to Stalin for some qualification. Stalin for his part insisted on the principle of unanimity based on his understanding of what had passed at Teheran. Moreover, American military opinion seemed to be swinging behind the Soviet stance and none other than Field-Marshal Smuts in his message of 20 September to the Prime Minister stressed that the chance should not be missed of treating the Russians as equals and worthy of trust: the principle of unanimity among the great powers could even act as a brake upon ‘people drunk with new-won power’.

Gromyko was blunt enough. When advised that Soviet obduracy might seal the fate of the World Organization before it saw the light of day, he replied that such an organization could in no wise exist if a great power were to be denied the right to vote in any dispute, irrespective of its role in that dispute. The voting formula for the Security Council clearly involved major issues and
major decisions for the Soviet Union: behind the legalism and the obduracy lay current preoccupations with new-found status and past memories of isolation and even expulsion from the world community, combined with fears of some repetition in the future.

In addition to being isolated in the Council it also appeared that the Soviet Union might be outnumbered in the General Assembly, with the Soviet Union assuming that only twenty-six signatories of the United Nations Declaration would be members, while the United States proposed the addition of six Latin American republics together with Iceland and Egypt; behind Great Britain were ranged six additional votes derived from the Dominions. The abrupt Soviet counter was to suggest all sixteen constituent republics of the USSR as members; though abruptly presented on 19 August and brusquely rejected by the President and Cordell Hull, the question lingered on and formed the basis of the President’s observation in January 1945 that he hoped to ‘trade’ the problem of voting against this Soviet claim for separate representation for the several Soviet republics.

On 6 February at Yalta President Roosevelt turned to the matter closest to his heart and nearest to his aspirations for the post-war world, the World Organization, transmuted now into the United Nations. His warning over the problem of the voting formula for the Security Council was nonetheless plain: failure to agree upon the American plan could prejudice American assistance in holding down a beaten Germany. However, the President had not come unprepared and unarmed. Stettinius proceeded to unfold a revised American plan, referring to a ‘minor clarification’ of Chapter
VIII
, Section C of the proposed United Nations Charter. Instantly alert, Stalin queried this ‘minor clarification’; amidst a considerable flurry, Gromyko managed to convince both Stalin and Molotov that nothing of substance was as yet involved, whereupon Stettinius proceeded with his elaboration of the voting formula, stressing now that nations other than the great powers might present their views to the Security Council, all as protection for the smaller countries. For a settlement by peaceful methods, seven votes would be needed plus the unanimous agreement of the permanent members of the Security Council; in the event of a dispute involving any member of the Security Council (including any permanent member), that same member might discuss the problem but not vote upon it.

Stalin declared himself puzzled by this new proposal. He defended the principle of absolute unanimity doggedly and with flashes of passion, pointing to the danger of a situation ten years hence when a new generation, unmindful of what war meant, might fall to blows and precipitate ‘conflict among ourselves’; with unanimity prevailing among the great powers, the German menace could be discounted. The Prime Minister’s intervention served to support the President’s plan and, as if to counter Stalin’s obvious reservations, he emphasized that the rights of the three great powers remained intact—as indeed the guarantee afforded to the Dominions secured British rights at large. No one would wish to appear to be bent on ruling the world, yet to deny the smaller nations the elementary
right of expression of their opinion might raise precisely those suspicions.

Wrapped up in his own suspicions, Stalin began to unwind these arguments for his own purposes. The new proposals would require study, though he asked for a copy of Stettinius’ paper at once. Clearly, the argument was not about any right to express an opinion—rather the real issue lay with making and taking decisions; as for countries so far brought up in the discussion, with China and Egypt having been cited, neither of these would simply rest content with expressing an opinion. Wherefore this argument about dominating the world and which power specifically was aiming at this? Great Britain had in an impromptu gesture sided with the United States over the voting formula: this could only leave the Soviet Union as the candidate for seeker after dominance. The Prime Minister intervened to deny this outright and repeated that it was simply a matter of avoiding giving such an impression on the part of the great powers. Stalin returned at once to what he found to be the true substance, the crucial implication, of this rather spurious argument about some phantom world domination: the great powers had to keep the peace at large by keeping the peace between themselves. Though pressure of work had prevented him from being fully acquainted with the Dumbarton Oaks proposals, he understood all too well what was involved in the United Nations Charter and the need to solve problems in such a way as to preserve the unity of the Big Three.

With his points thus hammered home, Stalin became rather more expansive. Having begun to align himself with the President, he suggested quite suddenly that out of recognition of America’s interests China should indeed be accorded some distinctive position of its own, a move which prompted the Prime Minister to add France to this list of favoured and favourite nations.

All this was but a prelude to further probing, however. Reverting to the revised formula, Stalin asked if he was right in assuming that there would be two categories of disputes, the first entailing sanctions (economic, political or military) and the second involving peaceful solutions. Thus far Stalin had understood everything correctly. That being the case, he went on to ask about procedures: in the event of sanctions being involved, all permanent members could vote even if one were a party to the actual dispute, whereas in the case of a peaceful settlement no party to the dispute—even if a permanent member—could vote? Once again, his view was confirmed. Assured now of his position, Stalin pointed out that if it appeared that the Russians seemed to talk too much about voting, this was because of overriding Soviet interest in voting which would decide everything. Suppose that China demanded the return of Hong Kong or Egypt claimed the Suez Canal? Neither country would be alone and would have ‘friends and protectors’ in the Council and Assembly. The Prime Minister countered this by insisting that the powers of the World Organization could not be used against Great Britain, which held the power of the veto. Eden reinforced the point by repeating that member nations might talk but could not decide of themselves; China and Egypt might complain, but the use of force must have the approval
of the British government. Stettinius weighed in, to assert that even economic sanctions would require the unanimous support of the permanent members of the Security Council.

Both Molotov and Maiskii tried to clarify this strange boundary between types of decisions and the operation of unanimity. The technical gyrations failed to persuade Stalin. The prospects for great-power unity could be endangered and even isolation visited upon particular nations through the manipulation of world opinion. Seizing once again on Hong Kong, Stalin pointed out that any discussion of that question could in effect damage great-power unity. Churchill hastily added that in this event normal diplomacy was still available for use by all states, great or small, with the Big Three having a special responsibility to discuss among themselves issues which might otherwise fracture their unity. Stalin returned a blunt reply: he pointed to what had happened in the Russo–Finnish war of 1939, when the British and French mobilized the League of Nations against Soviet Russia, first isolating and then actually expelling the Russians. What guarantee was there that ‘this kind of thing’ will not happen again? Both the Prime Minister and Eden assured Stalin that the American proposal made such an eventuality wholly impossible. But why not even more barriers, Stalin asked? The Prime Minister explained patiently that the expulsion of the Soviet Union from the United Nations Organization—unlike the League—could not be managed under any circumstance, since expulsion would mean a unanimous vote and any great power could simply veto it. It was, Stalin grumbled, the first time he had heard of that. The President confirmed the accuracy of what the Prime Minister had just said: here was the heart of the veto. Churchill admitted the risk of ‘agitation’ being worked up against any one great power—the British, for example—but here orthodox diplomacy would come into play; the President would scarcely open or support an attack on Great Britain, while Marshal Stalin would not launch some verbal assault on us without some preliminary consultation and without recourse to a friendly solution. Stalin tersely signified his agreement and signalled his alignment with the President’s sentiments about ‘Big Three’ unanimity combined with freedom of discussion, but he suggested that the discussion be carried over to the following day.

The business of the day, however, was far from done. Though there had just been a spate of talk about great-power unanimity, the next item on the agenda—Poland—embodied the most immediate threat to Allied unity. The fate of Poland, rather than Hong Kong or the Canal, rawed the nerves and jarred the amity of the three Allied leaders. Stalin needed to do nothing, save to sit, wait and watch while both the President and the Prime Minister impaled themselves on the spikes of their own discomfiture and impotence. President Roosevelt as chairman opened the discussion with a statement about his own objectivity, taking ‘a more distant view of the problem’, though identifying himself with the several million Poles in the United States who ‘like the Chinese, want to save face’. He reiterated the position he had adopted in Teheran: ‘In general, I am in favour of the Curzon
Line’. However, here was a place for a ‘gesture’ from Stalin, one which would leave Lvov and the eastern oilfields to the Poles, all to balance the loss of Königsberg. To settle the frontier issue on Soviet terms must mean that the Poles, the government in exile, must lose face. Stalin could only snort: true Poles for him were the Lublin Poles, who had already expressed themselves in favour of the Curzon Line. Shifting his ground, the President asked for the concession for his own electoral purposes, to give the Poles, all Poles, something with which to save face. Even so, he would not insist.

The question of the frontier line, however, did not compare in importance with the future government of Poland. The President recognized that any Polish government must be one ‘thoroughly friendly to the Soviet Union’ for the foreseeable future, but he stated quite bluntly that American public opinion would not countenance the recognition of the present Lublin government, rooted as it was in a small unrepresentative minority. He would suggest, in response to general demand, a ‘government of national unity’, which could well include representatives of the five main Polish parties; a small presidential council would appear to be a desirable innovation at this stage (a reflection of the proposal made by Stettinius to Eden at the Malta meeting on 1 February). As for Mikolajczyk, the President had met him during his visit to Washington and had found him an honest man. This was the limit of his acquaintance with either the London or Lublin governments.

At this the President opened the general discussion. The Prime Minister took up the cudgels at once, affirming his support for the Curzon line (‘that is to say, leaving Lvov with Russia’) and justifying the Soviet Union’s claim as one of right rather than might. For this he had been criticized not merely in Parliament but by the Conservative Party itself, yet even now a gesture on the part of the Soviet Union, some magnanimity, would not come amiss; such a move would bring both admiration and acclaim. However, the main issue lay not with some frontier line but with a Poland which would be free, strong and independent: ‘that is an objective which I have always heard Marshal Stalin proclaim with the utmost firmness’. Great Britain harboured no special designs: it was for a free and independent Poland that we had gone to war in 1939, ill-armed as we were, and risked everything not only as an empire but also as a nation. Honour had dictated that we draw the sword against Hitler and honour dictated a settlement for Poland bringing freedom and independence.

In the matter of the disputed governments, his own hands were as free as they were untainted. For some time he had not seen the present London government—‘we recognize them but have not sought their company’. Nevertheless, Mikolajczyk, Romer and Grabski were men of good sense and the British had confidence in them. The Polish question should not be the cause of a rift between the Big Three; the obvious move was to create some interim government or governmental instrument—‘pending full and free elections’—which recognized that Stalin must ensure the Red Army’s lines of communications in their advance
into Germany and any ‘temporary government’ would have to be acceptable to him under these special conditions.