FDR & Stalin

American History Hit

History Hit

America, History

4.5 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 23 January 2025

⏱️ 34 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

They say that the enemy of your enemy is your friend, but did that apply to President Franklin D. Roosevelt and his Soviet counterpart, Joseph Stalin, during the Second World War?

Despite their ideological differences, the United States and the USSR joined ranks on January 1, 1942, attacked by Japan and Nazi Germany, respectively. Their leaders would meet for the first time almost two years later at the 1943 Tehran conference.

Don is joined by Phillips Payson O’Brien, Professor of Strategic Studies at St Andrews. Phillips is the author of 'The Strategists: Churchill, Stalin, Roosevelt, Mussolini and Hitler – How War Made Them, And How They Made War'.

Produced by Freddy Chick. Edited by Aidan Lonergan. Senior Producer is Charlotte Long.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Christmas Eve, 1943, Franklin Delano Roosevelt sat poised before his radio microphone, preparing to address the nation.
0:11.8	It had been an arduous journey these past months of November and December, traveling in Algeria, Tunisia, Iran, Egypt, Malta, Sicily, and Senegal.
0:22.4	Now, with his thinning gray hair neatly groomed,
0:26.2	Roosevelt began to recount the pivotal meetings of the past weeks.
0:30.6	In Cairo, he and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill
0:33.7	had conferred separately with Chinese Generalissimo Shanghai Shek and Turkish president
0:39.4	Ismet Inanu. In Tehran, the pair had sat down with Soviet premier Joseph Stalin. For Roosevelt,
0:46.8	this marked a momentous occasion, his first face-to-face meeting with the man who held Russia
0:52.6	in his iron grip.
1:01.3	We did discuss international relationships from the point of view of big, broad objectives,
1:03.2	rather than details.
1:15.5	But on the basis of what we did discuss, I can say even today that I do not think any insoluble differences will arise among Russia,
1:17.8	Great Britain, and the United States.
1:26.6	In these conferences, we were concerned with basic principles, principles which involve the security and the welfare and the standard of living of human beings
1:30.7	in countries large and small. To use an American and somewhat ungrammatical colloquialism,
1:40.7	I may say that I got along fine with Marshal Stalin.
1:46.0	He is a man who combines a tremendous, relentless determination with a stalwart good humor.
1:54.0	I believe he is truly representative of the heart and soul of Russia.
1:59.0	And I believe that we are going to get along very well
2:02.5	with him and the Russian people.
2:05.1	Very well indeed.
2:37.0	Thank you. Hello, this is American History Hit.
	...

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