2. The origins of the Cold War in Europe, 1945–50

Abstract

‘The origins of the Cold War in Europe, 1945–50’ traces the origins of the Cold War in Europe. In theory and practice, the Americans and British were reconciled to a Soviet sphere of influence in Eastern Europe. At the Yalta Conference in February of 1945, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, and Joseph Stalin tried to resolve some of the basic disputes while also planning the war’s end game. Within weeks of the conference’s closing sessions, however, the Yalta spirit was jolted by mounting Anglo-American dissatisfaction with Soviet actions in Eastern Europe. The Potsdam Conference in July of 1945 and the Truman Doctrine amounted to a declaration of ideological and geopolitical Cold War.