Stalin revealed intense interest in only
three topics:

(1) urging the western allies to make a frontal assault, across the
English Channel, on Hitler's fortress Europe;

(2) finding out, immediately, the name of the man whom the western
allies would designate to command such an operation (Eisenhower had not
yet been selected); and

(3) reducing the whole of Europe to virtual impotence so that the Soviet
Union would be the only major power on the continent after the war.

Roosevelt approved of every proposal Stalin made.

A broad outline of the behavior and proposals of Roosevelt, Churchill,
and Stalin at Tehran can be found in the diplomatic papers published in
1961 by the State Department, in a volume entitled _Foreign Relations of
the United States: Diplomatic Papers: The Conferences at Cairo and
Tehran 1943_.

As to specific agreements on the postwar division and occupation of
Germany, the Tehran papers reveal only that the European Advisory
Commission would work out the details.

We know that Roosevelt and his military advisers in November, 1943,
agreed that America should take and occupy Berlin. Yet, 17 months later,
we did just the opposite.

* * * * *

In the closing days of World War II, the American Ninth Army was rolling
toward Berlin, meeting little resistance, slowed down only by German
civilians clogging the highways, fleeing from the Russians. German
soundtrucks were circulating in the Berlin area, counseling stray
troops to stop resistance and surrender to the Americans. Some twenty or
thirty miles east of Berlin, the German nation had concentrated its
dying strength and was fighting savagely against the Russians.

Our Ninth Army could have been in Berlin within a few hours, probably
without shedding another drop of blood; but General Eisenhower suddenly
halted our Army. He kept it sitting idly outside Berlin for days, while
the Russians slugged their way in, killing, raping, ravaging. We gave
the Russians control of the eastern portion of Berlin--and of _all_ the
territory surrounding the city.

To the south, General Patton's forces were plowing into Czechoslovakia.
When Patton was thirty miles from Prague, the capital, General
Eisenhower ordered him to stop--ordered him not to accept surrender of
German soldiers, but to hold them at bay until the Russians could move
up and accept surrender. As soon as the Russians were thus established
as the conquerors of C