Hopes and Failures: American Policy Toward East Central Europe, 1941–1947

Abstract

When the attack on Pearl Harbor plunged the United States into its second world war, the immediate concern of political leaders and public opinion alike was to train its manpower and to mobilize its industrial resources as the fisrst step in the long up-hill climb from initial defeat to decisive victory, first against Germany, then against Japan. Its prime political aim was to forge and maintain an effective working alliance with its major allies, Britain and the Soviet Union. If either faltered or failed in the joint effort, the road to victory and postwar security would stretch out beyond the horizon. After almost two decades of selfimposed isolation, American power was now to be concerned intimately with decisions, taken or not taken, which would in turn affect all parts of the world. Neither possessing the British tradition of continuity in its diplomacy nor possessed by the ruthless Soviet drive for expansion, impsrovised American policy-making toward many areas, including East Central Europe, sometimes mistook sympathy for policy, hope for action.